A Certain Something
by futo-chan
Summary: Rey Mysterio is loved by all of the wrestlers in WWE, but he has no idea that all of them actually suffer debilitating man-crushes on him. What should Rey do when he finds out? PLEASE REVIEW!
1. Chapter 1

After a huge Smackdown VS. Raw televised show, all but two of the divas (Melina and Michelle McCool) had gone home and all but eight of the Superstars had left as well.

In the men's locker room Rey Mysterio was one of the few who hadn't showered yet. He'd barely worked up a sweat during the show despite his many flips and gymnastically-inclined moves. He was used to wrestling strenuously and his part hadn't been too strenuous.

He was humming Shakira's "Whenever, Wherever" song softly to himself as he bounced along out of the locker room in his buoyant Adidas boots, and half black half sunshine yellow pants and Rey Mysterio t-shirt. He'd even kept his mask on. He went to the mailboxes to get his fan mail.

Jeff Hardy passed him in the hallway. Absent minded as he was, he'd left his gym bag out in his frighteningly old deathtrap of a black van that spewed smog out of its giant tailpipe like a dying pot smoker.

The more gothic wrestler grinned when he overhead Rey's humming. "Hey, man, I didn't know you were turning Columbian on us!"

Rey laughed. "I'm not! I just can't help it, man, her songs are so damn catchy I can't get them off my mind, you know?"

Jeff chuckled, "Whatever blows your skirts up, man," he said and entered the locker room.

Rey shook his head, laughing a little. Jeff could be pretty funny sometimes.

Rey turned his eyes and thoughts back onto the mailboxes, which were many, small, and set into the wall with combination spinners, like the industrial mailboxes inside city apartment buildings. They each had the same combination as the wrestler's locker room locker, so it was easy to remember.

"Siete…nueve…uno…" Rey said to himself and opened the door. He smiled.

"Nice little stack. Today is a good day." He pulled it out and walked back to the locker room. John Cena held the door open for him because he saw the luchador had his hands full of mail.

"Gracias, Senor Cena," Rey said jokingly and Cena chuckled. Rey sat down on a bench and filed through the mail. Everybody watched him come in and turned back to what they were doing when he sat down.

Batista had evidently just burst out of the showers. (He was the Animal, after all. If you weren't accustomed to being around him in fact, you might jump in utter fear the first couple of times you were witness to him opening doors of any kind. They were usually flung open as if a hurricane were hitting the building and swung wildly on their hinges as he rushed through them. Then ironically, he would turn around and quietly close them shut. Poor CM Punk nearly needed psychiatric help after his first week in WWE because Batista kept exploding in and out of various places in the locker room while Punk was still in there.)

He was wearing black jeans already and was drying his hair with a towel. He peeked over his friend's shoulder at the fan mail.

"Whatcha got there, Rey?" as though he couldn't tell. But he tended to ask Rey obvious questions because he liked the sound of Mysterio's voice. It was sweet and tinged with a kind of excitement and a kind of calm simultaneously and marked by a cool accent that hinted at a Californian dialect of Spanish.

"Letters…letters…and yeah, letters, Dave."

"Gotcha," Batista said, shaking his head and chuckling, going over to his locker and pulling out some shoes and socks.

"Oh ho, score one for the cruiserweight," Triple H announced.

Rey smiled and didn't say anything. The conversation moved on and he listened to the guys talk about how well all the matches went that night.

"What the hell is this?" Rey blurted suddenly.

"It's a note," Jeff said densely.

"Yeah, no kidding. But from who?" Rey said, scrunching up his face in thought.

There was a handwritten note folded inside the envelope, but along with the note was a check for a looooot of money.

"Holy shit Rey, somebody gave you their life's savings again?" Cena asked.

"What do you mean, 'again'?" Shawn Michaels looked at Cena funny. "This has happened before? How many times? Is this a regular thing?"

Nobody answered that.

"I'm mailing it back and writing them an apology that I won't accept it. If they mail this back to me again it's going to two places: One, my kids' college fund. Two: charity."

"Rey, that's good and all, but don't you think…" Shawn Michaels trailed off, twiddling his thumbs.

"Do I think what?" Rey demanded, quirking his pierced eyebrow.

"Well, there's door number three…you could give the money to little old me…" Michaels suggested, grinning devilishly.

"You aren't spending anybody else's goddamn fan money on hookers and blow," Triple H said exasperatedly and walked through the room, swinging a towel over his shoulder and heading for the showers.

"That's right. Thanks for backing me up, Triple H," Rey said appreciatively. Then he frowned and did a double-take at HHH but it was too late; the man was already gone.

Everybody else left in the locker room had pretty much the same reaction.

"Wait…what the fuck did he just say?" Batista rumbled quizzically.

"Was he serious?" Jericho asked, frowning in that way that made him look akin to a smoosh-faced Persian cat.

Shawn rolled his eyes. "No…I spent all of his money in Vegas when we went there one time. On gambling stuff. Card tables. Not nearly as weird as hookers and blow."

"Let's just take his word for it, guys, 'cause I don't want to think about the alternative," Rey interjected.

They all shivered. Michaels was one of the older guys still active in the WWE roster and they all loved him, but not enough to want to think about him…that way.

Rey continued to go through the wad of fan mail. There were still a few people out there who wrote actual letters. Rey liked them. They seemed unique now and somewhat nostalgic compared to emails or posts on his MySpace page.

HHH had returned from his shower, as he was in fact the world's fastest shower-taker who was not enlisted in a military service. Everybody else was also looking over Rey's shoulders now, most of them out of curiosity; Michaels out of hoping Rey might cave and give him the check.

"Anything else out of the ordinary?" Batista asked when Rey was two letters away from completing the pile. Little did they know there was something out of the ordinary sandwiched in between those last two letters.

The Animal was smearing something green and from a jar on his face.

"No…" Rey said, his voice trailing off quizzically as he stared at his friend. "Dave, what is that that's going on your face right now?"

"Exfoliating mask," Batista answered simply, screwing the lid back on the jar.

"Uh…kay. Does it like, peel off or…?"

Batista nodded.

"Right. It peels off." Rey stood in silence for a minute and then just shrugged.

All the other superstars in the room shot each other looks. They'd been judging Rey's reaction.

"Wait. Rey, are you seriously just gonna let the 'Animal'" HHH put it in bunny ear quotes, which made it much funnier. "Use _beauty _products? That's cool with you? Nothing shows up on your gaydar at all about that?"

"Just the fact that you said the word 'gaydar' makes _you_ show up on _my_ gaydar," Michaels interjected and expertly dodged an elbow jab from his fellow DX member.

Rey shrugged again and looked at everybody. "Whatever, it's his business. I bet John Morrison uses that stuff too."

They all laughed and secretly wished that they had Morrison's full-bodied hair. (Meanwhile, I wish for CM Punk's flawless, shiny, Asian-like hair.)

Rey exhaled nostalgically. "All I can think about when I see that guy is how he managed to short out our power that day he had too many hair straighteners and blow dryers plugged in. Michelle McCool told me she ran into a pole 'cause she was in the hallway when the lights went out."

They all pictured that.

"Are you sure she was in the hallway? 'cause there's probably a pole in the Diva's locker room…"

Rey rolled his eyes, annoyed by the immaturity level at the moment.

"God, Cena, you're making this story worse than it already is."

Cena chuckled "Sorry, dog, my bad. My bad."

"How badly did Morrison fare after that?" Michaels asked eagerly, grinning.

Michelle McCool was a compact can of rage on her good days and qualified as a natural disaster on her worst.

Rey chuckled, "Oh, she beat him six ways to Sunday. I had to pull her off him when the lights came back on."

"You were in the hall, too? I think everybody else was in the showers or the locker room," Jeff said.

"Yeah, he was in the hall, how else would he have seen Michelle in the hallway unless he was there? Use your brain, man!" Batista shot back.

"You guys finished yet? I can wait," Rey said calmly.

"Sorry, man, keep going with the story," Batista apologized.

"Yeah, so I was in the hallway too. That's when I saw her and it took me like two minutes to pull her off 'im. Then she told me why she was beating the crap out of him. She told me I'd better keep him from plugging the stuff back in again."

Michaels whistled.

"Damn, that girl can fight," Cena commented.

"Remember when John had to be absent the week after that because of the…" Rey motioned towards the fly of his pants.

Everybody nodded.

"You mean when his balls got all banged up?" Jeff said, stating the painfully obvious.

"Yeah, Jeff. That," Jericho said, annoyed.

"That was Michelle?" Triple H asked, lowering his voice as though dreading she would hear them and come beat them all in the same place.

Rey nodded. "That was Michelle."

They all considered that in silence for a moment, the way people consider what their last words are going to be that level of reverence.

"Wow, a _week_? Did she use a bulldozer or just kick him?" Michaels asked.

Rey sighed. "Aw, man, come on, it's too gross to even recount…" he said, shaking his head.

That all just scared them even more.

Triple H clutched Rey's comparatively little shoulder in terror and shook him.

"Please tell me it was a bulldozer!" he hissed.

"All I'm gonna say is that you shouldn't ever mess with a lady who's got high heels on. That's all I'm gonna say," Rey answered.

"Aw..._heels_? Sick…" Jeff Hardy said, flushing pale at the mental images.

They all shuddered in horror.

Rey looked up at Batista.

"Is your mask done yet?"

Batista blinked and then lit up with a spark of recognition. "Oh yeah! Yeah!"

Batista pulled up the edge of the green glob and peeled all of it off his face in one elastic-y, flat, eye and mouth-hole covered mass.

"Man, that's like something outta an alien movie or somethin," Jeff commented.

"Are you seriously okay with letting your dog use a woman's product?" Cena asked Rey.

"Why should I care? If he wants to take good care of his skin, fine! I'm not his Papi; I don't tell him what crap he should use!"

The Animal stared down John Cena.

"It's not for women! It says right on the damn jar it's for adults who actually care about their physical appearance!" Batista interjected angrily. "And John, I think you _might_ just qualify as an adult."

Triple H held Cena back as Jeff held Batista back. They both lunged at each other.

"Hey! Hey! If you both end up with black eyes then you won't fully appreciate what I found, would you?" Rey interrupted.

They both growled at each other and turned to the luchador. "What did you find, Rey?" Batista demanded.

Rey held it up.

"It's a key," Jeff stated.

"We know, Jeff, we're not blind," Jericho sighed, exasperated.

"It says WWE on it," Jeff said.

"We know, Jeff it's -" Jericho stopped and looked at the key. "It does have the logo on it. Maybe it goes to something in this building."

"Maybe Mr. McMahon put it in your box, Rey," Triple H suggested.

Rey shrugged. "I'll go look around and find out."

He got up and sauntered out into the hallway, key in hand.

Little did Rey know that the moment he was gone all the guys started talking at once.

"Man, I can't believe you didn't notice that he was defending your skin product! He's so chill, you know? I've never once heard him dis anybody for what doing what they want to do," Cena said admiringly.

"Of course he defended my skin product! I knew he'd like it, that's why I got it!" Batista shot back.

"Can I borrow your exfoliating mask goop, Dave?" Triple H asked sheepishly.

"Man, don't be a cheapskate! Dave, where did you buy that stuff? I'm gonna get my own jar!" Jeff declared.

"Bath and Bodyworks," Batista responded.

Triple H looked mildly confused at that. He'd heard of the stores but was absolutely clueless as to how to locate himself one.

"They're in malls, big guy," Shawn Michaels supplied after glancing at the look on his friend's face.

HBK figured as much. The only store HHH had probably ever entered in a mall was Vitamin World. And maybe those places that sell swords…

"I didn't know he liked guys with nice skin…" Jericho whined.

"Of course he likes guys with nice skin, have you not _seen_ his skin? It's gorgeous! It looks like caramel for the love of God!" Batista exploded.

"Guys!" Rey shouted from the hall.

"I think you're all gonna want to see what this key is for!"

Cena, Batista, HHH, Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho and Jeff Hardy all poured off of the men's locker room. Rey stood staring upwards at something.

It was the biggest door they'd ever seen.

They all stared at it. It was about twenty feet tall with a handle at Rey's waist level and one little keyhole as though it were a normal mailbox. They looked from it to their usual mailboxes set into the wall like tiny lockers and then back to the huge monstrosity.

"Was that there before today?" Jericho asked suspiciously.

"I don't think so," Triple H said.

They all looked at each other. Nobody had ever seen the door before.

"This is creeping me out, man," Jeff said uncomfortably.

Michaels rolled his eyes. "Really? 'Cause the rest of us are all totally used to shit appearing out of nowhere."

HHH laughed.

"I don't know if you should open it, man…" Chris Jericho warned, giving the door a death glare.

"I'm opening it. The key fits. But everybody get out of the way just in case." Rey broadcasted.

Everyone decided to be cautious and shuffled out further down the left or right sides of the hallway. Rey unlocked the door and bolted back to the left, recognizing the feeling of an unstoppable weight bearing down upon him. (That's aimed at you, Umaga. No offense, but you are a huge, huge man.)

Everyone was a safe distance away from the swinging door and the terrifying mass that lay inside it.

But Randy Orton, who, in contrast to HHH, took the world's longest showers and had just gotten out of them wearing nothing but gray sweatpants was busy cleaning out his beautiful little ears with Q-tips and didn't hear Rey's warning because he was busy wishing for a compact mirror got hit with the scariest load of mail in his entire life.

Everyone's eyes bugged out of their heads as the avalanche of packages hit Randy and buried him, spilling out a little ways into the hallway in both directions and creating a 10-foot deep hill in the epicenter of the disaster site.

Randy Orton was never heard from again.

"Aw, shit, man, that sucks," Jeff said, shaking his head.

"We can't just stand here! Somebody's gotta get him out!" Rey said worriedly.

HHH waved his hand and snorted. "Naw. Let's just leave him. It's his own damn fault."

Rey didn't like that idea. "No, it's my fault, that's _my_ fan mail he's suffocating in."

HHH shrugged. "Whatever. I'm not helping you pull the little fucker out."

Rey rolled his eyes and groaned, stepping gingerly onto the crest of the mail-hill and beginning to pull packages off the top of the pile. Within a few seconds Rey himself began to sink and Batista, always the gentleman, dashed halfway into the pile, stretched out and snatched Rey back before the gifts he'd been standing in toppled into themselves and got sucked deeper into the pile like quicksand.

Batista was hold-hugging Rey around the smaller man's hips.

Rey sighed from his perch. "Damn. Maybe he's stuck in there." He patted Batista's hand as a signal to be put down and the heavyweight reluctantly set Mysterio back onto his feet.

"Duh moffafucggin helf I'n sfuck in bere!" a very muffled Randy Orton screamed. I lied. He was heard from again.

"What did he say?" Jericho asked.

Batista shrugged, still standing protectively by Rey, and very much still proud of himself for saving him from the impending mail-trap.

"I don't know, but at least he's alive in there," Rey said, relieved.

"I think he said 'the motherfucking hell I'm stuck in here'," Jeff Hardy translated in his own southern accent.

Michaels raised an eyebrow. "Great. Now can somebody tell me what Jeff just said?"

"Fuck you, man," Jeff replied, glaring.

HHH chuckled.

"You two need to stop having your little prima donna catfights, all right? Randy's stuck in there and we've gotta figure out how to do something about it!" Rey chastised, frowning at Michaels, then back at Jeff.

The Hardy brother paled and hung his head, murmuring "Sorry, Rey."

Michaels pretended to pout a little.

"Rey's right. Now who the hell's gonna go in there? Rey is already too heavy and we're all heavier than that, obviously, so what's the plan?" Batista demanded.

"Hey, I'm not that much heavier than Rey!" Jeff Hardy snapped defensively.

"I'm not helping," HHH repeated.

"I guess I'll have to dive in, then. Dave, man, can you pull me out again?" Mysterio volunteered, always fearless in spite of his compact size.

Batista looked reluctant to agree to let Rey go in the pile again.

John Cena got a spark in his eye.

_I will save Rey Rey from having to go into danger! And when I save Randy I will win Rey's lo― err…friendship_. Cena thought to himself.

_Friendship. Yeah. That._

Before anybody could say anything John Cena unnecessarily tore off his shirt and chucked it in Shawn Michaels' face, diving into the pile with perfect form.

"By Mat bat frick!" Michaels said, his voice muffled by t-shirt. It translated into "Why that fat prick!" and scrambled to get the t-shirt off his face the way people do when they walk into a spider's web.

"What are you saying, Shawn?" Jeff Hardy asked, grinning.

"I know this won't end well," Jericho intoned, putting a damper on everything.

"Hey man, don't say that," Rey said; a note of disappointment in his voice.

Batista and the other guys shot dirty looks at Chris while Rey stared at the pile.

_Don't you upset Rey_ Batista mouthed and motioned he'd break Jericho's neck if he said anything depressing again.

Jeff Hardy and HHH nodded in agreement.

"Look! Look!" Rey said excitedly, jumping up and down a little.

"I see them moving! They're coming out!"

"I see 'em too!" Jeff said. "Whose hand it that?"

Some fingertips were starting to peek out of the top of the pile.

A John Cena wristband was the next thing visible as the man hoisted himself and the leaner Randy Orton up through the top of the pile.

"Catch!" Cena warned and tossed the slightly-limp Orton through the air.

Batista caught him.

Rey ran forward and smiled as Cena hoisted himself out of the pile.

"Way to go, man! Hey, can you breathe?" Rey said happily, a big grin on his face as he bro hugged Cena.

John laughed. "Yeah, Rey, it's no biggie!" He patted the smaller man on the back and kept his arm in a bro hug around Rey, raising his eyes so that they met Batista's.

John Cena winked at the other superstar and spread his fingers possessively out over Rey's back, daring the Animal to admit that he'd won Mysterio's coveted affections.

Batista growled threateningly.

Rey broke apart from Cena, his face blank with confusion and turned his head towards the noise.

Batista abruptly whacked Randy on the back as though he was burping a baby very violently and Randy coughed, making the same sound. Rey never knew the difference.

Coincidentally, Randy coughed up a stamp.

The luchador ran over to them while Jeff gave Cena a hand getting out of the pile.

Cena muttered something about "Batista…we'll fix him!" and Jeff nodded feverishly in agreement.

"Are you good, Randy? Nothin's broken? Nothin like that?" Rey asked concernedly.

A dizzy Randy nodded and grinned lopsidedly. "Yeah, yeah, sure. I've felt worse stuff hit me in the ring, right?"

Rey laughed. "I know exactly what you mean. And his name is Big Show."

Batista chuckled and patted Randy's shoulder, completing the father figure image of him caring for the tussled Orton and giving Cena's role as life-saver a run for his money.

Rey put his hand warmly on Randy's knee and grinned.

"As long as you won't sue me for trying to kill you with my fan mail, it's all good!" he said jokingly.

"Rey, why would I sue you? I make more money than you do!" Orton teased, managing to keep a straight face.

Rey laughed.

Randy's inner thoughts: _Oh my God he's looking at me and smiling! I hope my hair looks cool!!_

So it should come as no surprise that Randy nearly melted when Rey ruffled his hair playfully.

"Easy there, Randy. Don't make me stick you back in that pile again!" Rey laughed.

"If you won't, I will," Triple H said, narrowing his eyes at his protégé.

"How stupid and deaf can you be? Rey warned everybody the door was opening!"

"Yeah, man, Rey all but shouted 'timber!' dude," Jeff put in.

"Let it go, guys, it's already over and done, all right?" Batista said.

He turned to his friend.

"Rey, you want some help putting all this junk in your car?"

Since they were out of Rey's home state of California, Rey had a rental car that he'd been driving around in and been letting some of the other guys carpool in.

"Sure, thanks. Be back in a sec." Rey went and packed up his duffel bag, slipping the strap over his shoulder and grabbed his keys.

While he was gone Shawn Michaels burst into uncontrollable laughter that he'd evidently been holding in.

"What the hell is your problem now?" Triple H asked.

"I don't think we can fit any more junk in Rey Rey's trunk!" Michaels answered breathlessly.

"Cute, Shawn," Batista said, rolling his eyes, whereas Jeff and Cena began to chuckle too.

"Aw, man, guys, you know it's true!" Cena said.

Triple H looked up at the ceiling with a look on his face that clearly indicated that he felt as though God hated him, and thus he was forever stuck with HBK.

They all managed to shut up again by the time the locker room door opened and Rey came out twirling his keys around his index finger.

He looked right at Triple H and asked, "Are you going to say, 'I'm not helping' again?"

There was a tense pause.

"What's he talking about?" Orton asked, looking at his former mentor.

"No, Rey, I'm helping," Triple H said promptly and took off to the parking lot with an armload of packages.

"What?!" Orton exclaimed indignantly when Cena explained HHH's plan to let Randy suffocate or get crushed to death- whichever came first.

Turns out the pile was all packages, which made it easy to find all the mail but hard to carry it all out.

Rey jogged out into the parking lot where Triple H was waiting by his car.

"How the hell did you manage to fit that many things in one hand?" he asked.

Rey smiled proudly as he unlocked the car. He was holding two stacks of boxes, each about seven boxes high, which reached up above his own head.

"Practice. Every time I get back home after being on the road for a while I've got piles of laundry to carry around my house. And sometimes Angie's tired of being the only one who has to pick up all our kids' stuff, so I have to go on toy collection duty."

Triple H pictured Rey unmasked and at his house, carting around loads of wrestling pants or his son Dominik's action figures or his daughter Aalyah's barbies. It wasn't hard. Rey was a good father and every time the other wrestlers asked about his children he lit up and there was an extra bounce in his step. When his kids were younger, he would excitedly recount stories of his baby girl Aalyah tossing her baby food all over the kitchen floor as many of the guys winced in dread and made mental notes to never reproduce. But they saw that to him, all the mess and mayhem were happy memories. They liked the updates more now that the kids were older and felt less scared of potentially dealing with seven year olds than three year olds. If there was only some way to skip to that age and avoid diapers and potty training.

With everyone's assistance the massive mound of packages was crammed into Rey's (and later also Batista's) car in no time. They were all staying at the same hotel so it didn't matter much as to who transported whose stuff.

Rey went around and hugged all the guys goodnight and goodbye. They waved and went back inside to pack up themselves.

Shawn Michaels was going to ride with Rey. He had his bag already and he set it onto the floor of the passenger front seat.

"Shotgun has been called," Rey noted, un-strapping his mask and slipping it off.

It was truly a real-life transformation to see Rey Mysterio go from masked to unmasked. With his colorful pants, t-shirt, and black gloves with intricate white patterns he looked athletic and his shoes hinted at his tendency to be probably the fastest wrestler in WWE. But the mask was almost an entity unto itself. It all but screamed Mexican Lucha Libre heritage and definitely did its job to remind other wrestlers of the near-flamboyant style of Aztec warriors of the past. With the mask, Rey somehow managed to look fierce, and, coupled with his starkly colored contacts- today's were a light electric blue- he could even pull off being intimidating. He may have been small in stature, but once he got in the ring and took off his shirt to reveal his muscular torso and formidable tattoo collection, clenched his fists in those gloves, and stepped around his corner with all the bearing of a boxer and then stared you down with those crazy bright eyes…then you would know that Rey was not an opponent to take lightly.

But without the mask, Rey metamorphosed into someone else entirely. His right eyebrow was pierced and the tattoos were still obvious, making him appear still a little bit rough and tumble. His hair was buzzed close to his scalp and his ears were pierced with tiny hoops to match the ring on his eyebrow. But there was no getting around it; Rey was a baby face. He may have been in his early thirties, but he looked at least a decade younger. In a word, Rey was undeniably, entirely, mind-numbingly, eye meltingly cute. In Japanese the word was kawaii. So adorable that it should be illegal.

Rey smiled. It should have made him look conceited or self aware of his looks, but it didn't. Anybody who Shawn Michaels had ever met, who looked younger than their age, like Rey, had always tried to use their looks to beguile people and make them take their side. But he'd never seen Rey do that. Undoubtedly Rey had been teased by other boys when he went through school and other wrestlers when he was starting out, since he began his career as a teenager. But those other guys were probably wishing they were Rey about now, not just because of his successful career, but because every human being with functioning eyeballs were drooling over him. Looking too young when you are young may be looked down upon, but when you get older, you always wish you could be like Rey and look younger. Girls adored him and although they didn't like to admit it, men did too. (If the guys in WWE were all clamoring over him now, they would've had heart attacks if they'd seen him as a kid.)

He was very handsome in a soft kind of way, and his mouth was perfect, just exactly proportionate to his face. He was usually calm and possessed a kind of patience that he'd no doubt gained from fatherhood, and it made him seem his age even if he couldn't look it. Rey never emanated anything but a sweet, happy energy. He carried himself with the swagger peculiar to professional wrestlers, but every step he took bounced and was incredibly balanced. He looked graceful standing still, but always as though he was on the verge of either smooth everyday motion or bouncing off the walls the way he did in the ring.

He was still wearing his contacts and he wouldn't have the opportunity to take them out until they arrived back at their hotel. Until then, Shawn would have to look at the two faces of Rey Mysterio contrasting each other at once. If Rey's unmasking was like a metamorphosis then right now was like seeing a caterpillar with a butterfly's tongue. The contacts didn't match up with Rey's face outside of work.

It was highly unlikely that anybody would be intimidated by an unmasked Rey, especially if you knew his personality. There was the possibility that old ladies were afraid of a Latino man with tattoos and piercings but that possibility evaporated if they either 1) saw Rey with his wife and kids or 2) he smiled at them.

Shawn Michaels once considered using Rey as a weapon of mass destruction. If the luchador was ever held hostage by another country the U.S. President at the time-male or not- might develop a crush on Rey's photograph alone and launch nukes to rescue him. Rey had the potential to become the male Helen of Troy.

All of the attention from other wrestlers was undoubtedly because of the cuteness and poor Rey was completely oblivious to it, as far as Michaels could tell. But that attention had been going on for years. It hadn't reached epic Helen-of-Troy-like proportions until recently with all of the guys scrambling to get the exfoliating cream to have a chance at looking beautiful for Rey. Or the ridiculous piles of gifts from his fans that vastly outnumbered anything that the other guys were receiving.

Shawn was afraid that if he didn't make sure that Rey knew just how out of hand things had gotten, the situation would explode and the worst way for Rey to discover that people were madly in love with him was to get kidnapped by one of them. The other wrestlers were the ones Shawn was the most worried about. The fans would all calm down after a while and pick somebody else to freak out about, but the guys would just get worse and worse.

"Anybody else coming along that you know of?"

"Randy doesn't want to ride with Triple H any more, so he's coming.

Rey chuckled. "Can't say I blame him. I wouldn't want to be crushed by mail, either."

"Rey…" Shawn Michaels began, stuffing his hands into his gray pullover, his stocking cap clinging to his head.

It was fall where they were, and it felt like it.

He wanted to tell Rey the truth. He'd never been as blindly in love with Rey as the other wrestlers. He liked Rey a lot as a person and a coworker, but not as a love interest or sex object. He felt like he was indebted to Rey -as a friend- to tell him what was going on behind the scenes in his life. Michaels would have wanted somebody to tell him if a bunch of heavyweights had crushes on him.

But the sun was beginning to set and Rey looked so peaceful, and damn it…beautiful.

"What?" Rey asked airily, and the wind blew the mask in his hand slightly. Michaels got an idea. He may not have wanted to ruin Mysterio's mood tonight, but they would be in town for one more day.

"Rey, how about just me and you go tooling around tomorrow? I have some stuff I'd like to talk to you about."

"Oh. Kay. Sure. I didn't have anything else planned for tomorrow. I almost forgot we have another day here."

He could tell it was something serious.

Randy Orton came running with his bag, fully dressed now in a shirt and hoodie, panting.

"Slow your roll, man. Calm down," Rey said.

"What's up? Is Triple H chasing you or something?" HBK asked, half-kidding.

Randy nodded.

They both stared at him.

He caught his breath a little and rasped, "Well…he will be. I put shaving cream in his pants for trying to kill me with Rey-Rey's fan mail."

Shawn Michaels ducked into the passenger's side front seat as fast as humanly possible and then shut the door.

"Ay dios mio…" Rey said, exasperated, looking up at the heavens. He slid in behind the wheel and shut his door.

"What? Is he right behind me?"

"Get in the damn Lexus, Randy!!" Rey yelled.

Triple H was in fact, just bursting out of the building, shouting angry things that were still audible this far away. "YOU LITTLE PRICK!!! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!"

And other things too scary to repeat.

"Jesus!" Randy yiped and flew into the car, pulling the door shut and locking it.

"Drive, Rey! Drive!"

Rey swore under his breath in Spanish and pulled out surprisingly fast. He slowed down once they were safely on the road.

HBK and Orton were both laughing that HHH had given up on chasing them once had reached the edge of the parking lot. And at the fact that Rey was capable of driving like an action hero.

"Randy."

They stopped laughing. Rey had that tone that all the guys were positive he must have used with his kids whenever they did something bad. It had the exact same effect on all the wrestlers regardless of their age. Triple H and Batista were known to bristle and straighten up whenever Rey went into his 'disappointed father' voice. But it was usually aimed at one of the younger guys. Like Randy right about now.

Rey didn't take his eyes off the road.

"You are going to apologize to Triple H the very next time you see him."

"But, Rey, that's-" Randy protested.

"Not finished talking."

Randy shut his mouth.

"You are going to be completely sincere about that apology. _Got it_?"

Randy nodded fiercely.

"I can't see you up here, Randy, I'm driving."

"Yes sir," Randy peeped.

"Good."

Rey seemed satisfied enough with that answer.

HBK watched him in silence carefully until finally Mysterio's body language relaxed and he rolled his shoulders.

"Rey?"

"Yeah, Shawn?"

"How did you learn to drive like a NASCAR driver?"

Rey laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi, this is Futo-chan. I love it when people review my fanfics!!! If you're reading this then review!!!! Pleeeeeaaase!!! And those comments about "please add the next chapter" don't count unless you critique the plot, too!!! **

**By the way, the ****Rey Mysterio & Trish Stratus Vs Chris Jericho & Victoria ****match I mention was a real match that you can view on YouTube. It's one of my favorites. Look it up if you're into that! ;) **

Once they got back to the hotel parking lot, HBK went separate ways with Rey and Randy. Orton tagged along after Rey, still surprised after all these years of working with him at how fast the luchador could walk.

"Rey…" Randy began, a worried tone coming into his voice.

"Can I stay with you and Batista tonight?"

"Why?"

"I was rooming with Triple H…"

"Oh. Yeah. Sure. It's not a big deal. Do you need your stuff from his room?"

"Is he gonna do anything to it if I leave it there?"

"He might, uh…let's see, what's he done to people's stuff?" Rey thought for a second before he began listing HHH's past offenses off on his fingers. "Ah. Yeah. He could either hide it in one of the girl's bathrooms or a janitor's closet in the hotel, chuck it in the pool, fling it up onto the roof, light it on fire, dye all your clothes pink, plant an ink bomb…"

"Okay! Okay! I hear you! But how am I supposed to go into my room and get my stuff back and still come out alive?"

Rey scanned the parking lot. "Triple H isn't back yet. Here's my room key. Could you take my bag up to the room? Please and thank you."

Randy nodded and took Rey's bag and his room key.

"Kay. Now, Dave might give you some shit and stand in the doorway or something because he probably won't like having an extra roommate."

Randy gulped.

"All you have to do, though, is tell him 'Rey doesn't want to have to show Mr. McMahon the Vegas photos' and he'll lay off."

"What are on the Las Vegas photos?"

"None of your business," Rey answered calmly.

"The Incident"

When Rey and Trish Stratus had a match against Chris Jericho and Victoria a couple of years back, the whole roster had come along for the ride. Rey hadn't done anything too off the wall because he didn't like to be messed up before or after his wrestling shows and he didn't want to give his wife Angie any more reasons to worry about him when he was on the road.

But the incident he was referring to was the night before they all had to leave Vegas and everybody had a night off. Rey had exhausted himself doing G-rated things all day long and went to bed before anybody else did, evidently.

At two in the morning he was woken up by raucous –and drunken– male laughter in the parking lot and knew immediately who it was. He sighed, put on shoes and went out with his digital camera to take advantage of the opportunity to gain hilarious evidence of all the guys' behavior. Some of them were doing things too weird to be described, most of them managed to make it back inside their hotel rooms to pass out, but the long and the short of it was that Batista and Triple H woke up the next morning on the ground of the parking lot, Triple H as badly sunburned as a cooked lobster, and wearing a white tutu and ballerina leotard and Batista not as badly burned thanks to his darker skin, but wearing a pink Glinda the Good Witch getup that had to be seen to be believed. Nobody remembered how the hell getting those outfits had transpired, but apparently they'd been paid for. It was possibly the scariest event to ever occur in modern day wrestling, and nobody but the wrestlers knew about it.

Rey had gone out and woken them both up in the morning, (the rest of the WWE roster trailing him, much to the embarrassment of HHH and Batista) by pouring cold water on them. Jeff Hardy, who had experience with Rey Mysterio saving everybody's asses and cleaning up the aftermath of crazy nights on the road, was with the whole roster at breakfast and saw Rey borrow a pitcher of ice water. With an ice pack pressing up against his head, Jeff pointed at the luchador and said "Follow Rey, guys! That's where the fun's at!"

Rey had just rolled his eyes and let everybody stalk him as he padded out onto the parking lot and splashed water on Triple H first, who sat bolt upright and said, "Rey?"

"Yeah?" he'd answered.

"Where am I?"

"The hotel. You're in the parking lot."

"Oh. That's not so bad."

"Your sunburn _is definitely_ bad. Can you stand up by yourself?"

"Yeah. I think so."

"All right. You need to find yourself a mirror when you get inside. And you know the drill; stay away from Mr. McMahon. I'll send a big bottle of Aloe Vera to your room for your skin."

"Thanks for always being the lookout, Rey," HHH said.

Randy had escorted him back to his hotel room and reported back that when HHH looked in the mirror and saw his outfit that he nearly killed Orton and demanded to know if anybody had evidence of this atrocity. Randy admitted that Rey had pictures.

HHH had never messed with Rey ever since then.

Rey splashed the remainder of the ice water on Batista.

"Wha? Who? Rey, is that you?" Batista asked, squinting at Rey through the bright morning sunlight.

"Buenos dias," Rey said flatly. Everybody sniggered.

"Can you get up on your own?"

"Of course I can, what's wrong with you? Why are you asking that?"

"Because you were _smashed _and because I don't want you to, uh…trip over your skirts," Rey grinned, exploding into laughter.

Batista looked down at himself scrambled up, and realized he was clutching a wand to complete his horrific ensemble just in time to hear the click of Rey's camera. Needless to say, Batista chased Rey back into the hotel, but Rey ran up the stairs before the heavier wrestler could reach him. And so Mysterio kept the photo evidence which had now become a legendary feat of blackmail amongst everyone in WWE. They would all whisper about "the incident" and whenever younger guys asked how Rey dealt with the aftermath of parties or other occasions that induced poor judgment, the older guys would say Rey would take care of you and clean up your mess and sober you up and help you get on the road…but that didn't mean he wouldn't take pictures.

"Do you have the room key to Triple H's room?" Mysterio asked.

"Yeah, here it is." Randy fished it out of his pocket and gave it to Rey.

The luchador sighed. "What I do for you guys, honestly…" He shook his head.

"Text my cell when you make it into my room so that I know nobody jumped you or something."

Randy nodded.

They met up with Batista on the way into the hotel and all boarded an elevator together, just the three of them. In a tight space. Alone together.

"Hey, Randy. Why're you carrying Rey's bag? Lose a bet?" Batista asked, smirking.

"He's carrying my bag because he's taking it to our room while I go get his stuff a safe distance away from Triple H."

"Why can't you just drop your stuff off in the room and then go get Randy's things? You have arms, don't you?"

"Yes, I do, Dave," Rey answered, raising both of his arms out in front of him and flexing his gloved fingers and then putting his hands on his hips, annoyed.

"Then why does Randy have to carry your stuff to our room? He doesn't need to go in there," Batista pressed.

"Because Randy can't stay in Triple H's room tonight, so he's staying with us."

Tense silence as the smirk slipped off The Animal's face.

"Rey, I don't think it's a good idea. You can't just start adopting the younger guys just because they pull stupid shit like fucking around with Triple H's stuff!"

"You see any papers in my hands?"

"Rey, you're not getting it."

"DO YOU SEE ANY FUCKING PAPERS IN MY HANDS?!" Rey shouted.

"No."

"There you go. There is no adopting going on here."

"Why do you always have to be such a bleeding heart about everything?"

"I don't know. Why do you always have to be such a pendejo?"

"Why do you always hafta swear at me in Spanish?"

"I don't. I said 'fucking' in English like two seconds ago. Pay attention."

Batista sighed. "Jesus Christ, man, can we please just not have this fucking kid in our room?"

"Look, the only reason why I'm letting him crash in our room is because I do not want to have to be woken up at 3 AM by the sounds of Triple H throwing him through a window. That's it."

"Fine. I see your point."

Rey liked a good night's sleep as much as the next guy but Batista valued it the way that most people value solid gold. He would kill for it. In fact, if anyone tried to keep him from getting it, that person was in serious danger of being dismembered.

The door *dinged* open and neither of the wrestlers had ever seen Randy Orton scurry anywhere faster than he scurried to their door.

"I'm going to go get Randy's stuff. His room was on another floor."

"You're such a mother hen," Batista teased.

Rey took a deep breath.

"Pendejo, pendejo, pendejo, pendejo, pendejo, pende-" he said as the elevator doors closed. "-jo." Rey finished when they shut completely.

Batista stomped over to Randy Orton, who was standing in front of the hotel room door he'd just opened. Rey's key was in his hand.

Orton was about to open his mouth to invoke his get-out-of-being-killed-free-card but Batista beat him to it.

"I know, I know. The Vegas photos. Get in the damn room, princess," Batista grumbled.

Randy got in the damn room and Batista slammed the door behind them.

By the time the elevator reached the correct floor Rey was having second thoughts about going into Triple H's room alone. He had no way of telling if the wrestler had made it in there before he was going to barge in.

"Should have brought back-up…" Rey muttered and slid the key card into the door, pulling it out and yanking the door open quickly, they way cops do on TV. It was empty. He exhaled.

Luckily, since it was their last day there, Randy had packed up all of his things that morning. And all the guys carted around their razors and other toiletries in their duffle bags, so Rey didn't have to comb through someone else's bathroom for random objects.

He found Randy's two suitcases and zipped them both up, set them upwards onto their wheels and was on the verge of starting to pull them out by the handle when he heard the *ding* of the elevator doors opening and heavy footsteps. Heavy like a heavyweight.

"Shit." Rey froze and his heart started beating rapidly. He'd left the door wide open, so he might as well go for it. Well…maybe not run, but…

Rey wheeled out the suitcases as calmly as possible and met Triple H in the doorway.

"Rey?"

"Yeah?" he replied simply.

"Are those Randy's things?"

What the hell. There was no way to lie about that, anyway.

"Yes."

"Where are you going with Randy's things, Rey? Are you taking them to Randy?" Triple H leaned in close to Rey so that the luchador could feel hot breath around his eyes and wherever else his mask wasn't shielding him.

"Because you know I'll just follow you to him," Triple H said his voice low and hazardous.

Rey started at the sound of his cell phone alerting him of a text message.

It was tucked in between his waist and the waistline of his pants. Figures that Randy picked now to text him.

"Is that him?"

"No, Angie-"

"Your _wife_ is texting you? And saying what? 'LOL, look this stuff on UTube'? You need to learn how to lie better, Rey."

That was certainly true.

Rey sighed. "Look, Triple H, I'm not gonna tell or show you where Randy is. Plain and simple. Follow me all you want. I'm just taking the suitcases to my car."

"Why do you always do this, Rey?"

Rey rolled his eyes. What was with people today? Who decided to declare today the day to do an intervention on random acts of kindness?

"I have kids, it's a compulsion, I guess, to shelter little itty bitty Randy Orton because in some bizarre way he must remind me of them," Rey said sarcastically. "Now can I please leave now?"

Triple H stepped out of the way and shut the door, following Rey into the elevator and down to the ground floor.

As the elevator clicked onwards, Rey sighed and crossed his arms. "Look, Triple H, I'm not picking sides. I'm sorry if it seems that way, but I'm not. Randy just needs to get away from you tonight for your sake as much as his."

The larger wrestler didn't respond.

Rey sighed again. "If it's any consolation to you, I apologize on behalf of Randy that he was a dumbass and sprayed whip cream or whatever the hell it was in your pants."

There was an awkward pause and Triple H blinked at Rey, his expression shifting so that all the anger vanished into the lines of his face. He never ceased to be surprised that Rey could care-and worry- about so many people at the same time.

"Thanks, Rey."

Rey relaxed a little.

Triple H snorted all of a sudden.

"What?" Rey asked, confused.

Triple H started laughing. "It was shaving cream. Who the fuck carries around whip cream in the locker room?"

Rey sputtered and joined in laughing at his mistake.

"Oh, God…" he said after they both felt like their sides were splitting. "Oh, man, I must be so tired right now. I can't believe I said 'whip cream'."

They both managed to compose themselves by the time the elevator opened onto the ground floor.

"I'm just gonna go back to the room, Rey. I trust you enough that you'll take the suitcases where you said they were gonna go."

"Thanks, man," Rey said gratefully, wheeling said suitcases towards the door.

"And thanks for getting Orton out of my hair, for tonight, wherever you put him!" Triple H called.

"You're welcome!" Rey shouted back and did, in fact, take the suitcases out to his car.

Rey had never gotten around to showering at the arena. Once he knew he'd have to be loading boatloads of packages into his rental car, he decided not to bother with one until he got back to the hotel.

So he showered and meanwhile, Randy sat at the edge of Batista's bed. Batista sat at the end of Rey's bed as though he were guarding it from Orton's touch. You could tell it was Rey's bed because when he came in he'd draped his mask over the post.

There was an awkward sort of silence between Orton and Batista despite the fact that the TV was on. (It was on TNT, Batista had the remote, and they were watching The Closer.)

"Huh. Rey's pretty quiet in there. He's not drowning, is he?" Randy asked.

"Naw. Rey doesn't sing in the shower."

Batista sang in the shower. Ironically. Because he had the worst singing voice ever. John Cena told him so one day because being John Cena, he was the bluntest man alive.

"Man, you suck. Stop singing and shit in the showers, man, cause all our damn ears are bleeding."

Batista asked everybody if they thought so and they all nodded. Batista asked Mysterio and Rey looked at him for a second and then chuckled.

"Hey, don't sweat it. Most people who are really good at something aren't as good at doing other things. You're a better wrestler than you are a singer. So am I."

"Except Ashlee Simpson couldn't out-sing _you_, Rey," Cena had said.

And they'd all laughed because it was true.

"Why? Does he have a bad singing voice?"

"No, actually. I've heard him sing to his kids, and he's pretty good."

"Then why do you think…?" Orton said, scrunching up his eyebrows.

"I don't know," Batista shrugged.

Rey came out of the bathroom ready for bed. He saw the show on TV and remarked, "Ah, The Closer! Cool."

Batista chuckled. "I love me some Kyra Sedgwick."

"Yeah, she seems like a nice person," Randy said.

Rey patted his head. "Oh, so innocent."

"Who am I uh…bunking with?" Randy asked after the show was over and they turned off the TV.

Batista narrowed his eyes at Orton in a way that definitely indicated that he was not going to cooperate with such foolishness.

Randy flushed, swallowed his tongue, and turned to Rey hopefully. Rey was actually considering it because there were two double beds in the room and he wasn't nearly as space-consuming as Batista would be.

"Man, you can't possibly let a guy sleep where Angie would sleep if she were here," Batista said suddenly.

"Floor," Rey said immediately, gesticulating towards -you guessed it- the floor.

"You're sleeping on the floor, Randy. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize to him! Rey, why're you getting sore at me? Come on, man!"  
"Do I have to say it?"

Randy put some sheets on the floor that Rey tossed at him and climbed in like he was a kid in a house where two parents were fighting.

"Nobody's stopping you from saying what's on your mind."

"You're getting like, homophobic, you know?" Rey said, frustrated.

"Me?! Homophobic?"

"Yes, you!"

"You know I'm not a bigot, Rey! How could you say that?"

"Well, what do you call this right here? 'Oh, no, your bed is the size of a small country, but he can't sleep way on the other end of it because I'm a HOMOPHOBE?!'"

"Well, why the hell is he in here, anyway?"

"What was I supposed to do?"

"Just let HHH beat his dumb ass, that's what you're supposed to do in this fucking situation, Rey!'

"Aw, come on! Be serious!"

"I mean it! You need to stop getting involved in other people's conflicts!"

"And you need to stop making conflict between you and me, but I don't see either of those things happening!"

Batista huffed and Rey glared at him, fists clenched.

"Whatever. Fuck all of you. I'm going to sleep," Rey declared, fed up with the whole situation. It had been such a weird day.

Batista sat up in his Planet of the Apes pajamas that were flannel and long-sleeved like the ones little boys wear except infinitely larger than that to contain his crazy-huge muscles.

Randy had already fallen asleep in spite of the war going on around him.

Rey turned off the lamp beside his bed and punched his pillows a couple of times-something he normally didn't do- and loudly plopped himself down, his back to Batista as a last "Fuck you".

Randy turned over in his sleep and mumbled unintelligibly.

"Fine. Whatever. He's staying, I got it. But he's weird, man. Apparently all he dreams about is food."

Rey didn't want to stop the silent treatment just because of some stupid comment. He didn't respond at first. But Batista didn't move and didn't say anything. Rey's curiosity got the best of him.

"He talks in his sleep?" he asked skeptically, shifting slightly, not wanting to give away how interested he was.

"Yeah. I had a girlfriend that did that, once. She could even respond when you talk to her."

"While she was still asleep?" Rey asked.

"Hell yeah. It was pretty bizarre."

"Then ask him something."

"Randy! You all right?" Batista asked the sleeping Orton, enunciating his words.

"Mmm…cheeseburgers…" Randy yawned.

"The hell!" Rey blurted and sat up, scooting to the edge of the bed, pressing himself down onto it, and peering down at Randy. "Do it again."

Batista grinned, taking the time to relish that he had Rey virtually eating out of the palm of his hand. That and the fact that Rey looked absolutely adorable in that position.

"Randy, what are you thinking about right now?" Batista asked.

"Unh…apple pie…" Randy answered.

"Maria, madre de Dios..." Rey murmured in awe.

"Told you he was weird."

Rey nodded. Then he came back to himself and remembered that he was still incredibly irked at Batista. He put his game face back on and very pointedly ignored the opportunity to look at Dave and turned around again, planting himself firmly onto his pillow.

"Buenos noches," Rey said flatly and pulled the covers up around himself.

"Night, Rey," Batista mumbled, but Rey heard it.

"Ham sandwiches…"

Unfortunately, Rey heard that, too.


	3. Chapter 3

**ADRIIIIAAA!!! ADRIA! Please review this story!!! Arrrgh!!! –Futo**

**Yesh. Please review this story!!! I hope that this fic inspires more people to write fanfics about Rey! He deserves more stories where he's the main character, I think. **

Rey rustled around in the sheets. Why was he awake, again?

There was a soft knocking on the door.

"_Rey_! _Rey_! _Wake up_!"

"Wha? Wha..? Aalyah? Dominik?"

Dominik was way too old for this shit, and it seemed bright outside, so why would little Aalyah need him at this hour? What was going on? Was the house on fire?

Rey started into full consciousness and remembered that he wasn't at home.

He pattered silently across the floor, narrowly avoiding tripping on Randy Orton, and looked into the peephole on the hotel door.

"_It's me_! _Shawn_!"

Rey opened the door quietly.

Shawn beheld a sight for sore eyes. A sleepy Rey Mysterio in sky-blue white bunny-covered footie pajamas.

"What's up, Shawn?"

"First of all, man, some crazy shit happened last night."

_Such as you putting those pajamas on and surviving until morning without one person hugging the living daylights out of you. _

"Like what?"

"We lost Randy!" Michaels reported excitedly.

It really was scary; Rey would think later when he was more awake, that Shawn Michaels' grin was that big upon giving Rey the news that Orton, one of the younger guys in the roster, was missing.

"No, we didn't."

"You know where he is?"

Rey shifted around so that he was blocking the view of the room in between him and the doorway.

"Yeah."

"Where? He isn't dead, is he?"

"He's alive, but I can't tell you where he is or you'll tell Triple H."

Shawn sighed, clearly disappointed.

"Way to spoil my fun. Come on, get dressed. Let's go."

"Shawn, what time is it?"

"It's eight o'clock."

Rey yawned. "Was I really up that late that I'm still sleepy at eight in the morning? Damn, I'm getting old." He shook his head, disappointed at the effects of aging.

"Be back in a few. And be quiet out here or you'll wake Dave and he'll try to chuck me through the wall again."

"_What_?" Shawn hissed, too late, because Rey closed the door on him.

A couple of minutes later, Rey shuffled out, dressed in dark, form-fitting jeans, a black tee that wasn't visible, and a black Ed Hardy hoodie, stuffing a mask in its pocket out of some sort of habit.

"Dave tried to throw you through a wall?"

They began to walk down the hall.

"No, I meant that figuratively. He probably wanted to toss me out the window. We were arguing a lot yesterday."

"You guys hardly ever fight. What was it about?"

"Just stuff, I don't even know, it just doesn't seem to make any sense."

Michaels seemed strangely worried by this. They went out, grabbed some quick breakfast, and then climbed into Michaels' rental car, which was somehow already full of his stuff and fast food wrappers and clothes, in piles and piles and piles. All the other wrestlers had sneaking suspicions that Michaels was a hoarder.

"What in the hell am I looking at, here?" Rey asked and pointed at the manila folder that Shawn had just tossed into his lap. Rey was attached to a plastic and cap-covered cup of coffee in his hand as they each sat in a back seat inside Michaels' van.

"Look, don't freak out, but I've been doing some research on you for a while."

"Oh yeah? What kind of research?"

Rey was still not in the most aware state, so Shawn knew he could have told the man something undeniably strange and get the slightest reaction.

Shawn's imagination: "Rey, the abominable snowman broke into my hotel room and stole my Carmen Miranda hat."

Rey: "That's nice, Shawn…" *sips coffee*

Shawn sighed. "Okay, look, Rey, I have something important to tell you."

"So tell me."

"When I first started out in WWE it became really obvious really fast that I'm smaller than a lot of the other guys."

Rey nodded. Michaels barely qualified as a heavyweight and had probably had to work harder to gain far more muscle than many naturally larger guys so that he could reach heavyweight status. He'd needed to because in those days the smaller wrestlers like Rey could never get a main event in a show. And that's where all the money and fame was. Even if he had managed to technically become a heavyweight, Michaels' height still made his entire career an uphill battle.

"Well, at first most of the guys didn't like me. You know how guys are; they don't like new people barging in to rain on their parade. But then over time they warmed up to me. And I realized that a lot of the guys had actually gotten a…thing for me. You see where I'm going with this?"

Rey shook his head.

"You're having the same problem," Shawn clarified.

Rey had just taken a sip of coffee and was all but choking on it.

"Wait…._what_ now?"

"All the guys in WWE that I know of have a thing for you."

"Why the hell would they have a thing for me? What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"If it's any consolation, all of the Divas like you, too."

"You are seriously screwed up in your mind. You know that, right?"

"Just hear me out, Rey. Just listen for a second."

"Kay. Kay, whatever. Fine. I'm already sitting here, so go ahead and spout crazy nonsense at me."

"Back when all the guys were interested in me-especially Taker, who still is-"

"Too much information," Rey interjected.

"Anyway, back then they would do all sorts of favors for me. The guys slowly lost interest in me but some like Undertaker always preferred me to the new cute guy. I'm his type, I guess."

"Like I said, too much information, Shawn," Rey reminded.

"I was blindsided the first time the guys replaced me with a new guy as their favorite. But by the second replacement I was ready. I knew all the signs."

"Like…like what signs?" Rey asked carefully. He was interested now.

"Like them offering to buy things for you, carry your stuff; get you food, water, or candy. Being unusually nice or polite is a sign, too. Chivalry is not dead, my friend."

Rey swallowed and felt a little uneasy. The moment where Cena had held the door for him last night replayed itself in his mind.

"It can be anything nice," Shawn added.

"Okay," Rey acknowledged a little queasily.

"Can you think of any times that the guys offered to do favors for you?"

Michaels prodded gently.

_Only like every single day. _

"Well, when my bicep was torn, and when my knee was bad-"

"Injuries don't count."

Rey looked a little relieved and then he flushed again.

_Come on, Rey, admit it. _

He opened his mouth to speak, and then thought better of it.

"Man, this is bullshit. I'm going back to the hotel."

He had his hand on the door latch when Shawn Michaels said calmly, "Don't you want to know what's in the files?"

Rey hesitated. Slowly his hand slid off the door and he took another sip of coffee, eyeing Michaels, then the files in his lap again.

"I know I'm gonna regret this," Rey said, opening a folder.

His pupil scanned along. "These are the results of my bicep surgery."

"Yeah. I called Angie and asked her for copies."

"Why did she give them to you?"

HBK shrugged. "Guys have asked for weirder things, I'm sure. Now. Tell me how much it says the cost was on the bill."

Rey paused awkwardly and set the file down.

"Come on, Rey."

"There wasn't a bill…" he muttered.

"What, now?" Shawn asked, leaning in a little obnoxiously.

"Look, they didn't charge me, okay?"

"For a damn surgery, Rey? Doesn't that sound suspicious to you? Why do you think your surgeon- a full grown man- would refuse to charge you for a procedure? Did you not see him making goo goo eyes at you? How did you miss that?!"

"I noticed! I'm not dense! What was I supposed to do, do a West Coast Pop off the operating table and force him to accept money?"

Shawn sighed.

"It was a…okay, well it only happened twice recently. The first bicep surgery and the first knee surgery were both free. But I needed several more procedures on both and those were all paid for."

"What the fuck does that mean? 'RECENTLY'?!"

Rey bit his lip. "Nothing. Never mind."

Shawn exhaled. "At least tell me how you get out of it. Did you give them your big puppy dog eyes? What did you do?"

"I didn't _do_ anything," Rey said defensively.

Shawn shook his head. "Wow. Once I realized I could get free stuff outta people I realized I still had to make a face, at least." He pouted demonstratively. "Or sometimes I'd have to turn on the ol' waterworks."

"You _cried_?!" Rey hissed in disbelief. "You sick fuck! Those people were probably genuinely worried about you!"

Shawn shrugged. "Do what you gotta do, man. But Rey, this is serious, here, this effect that you have on people. I mean, for God's sake you won the heart of a forty-five year old _male_ surgeon who was married with a family, and who you'd never met before in your entire life!"

"Whoa! Whoa! Back up! You're acting like he was madly in love with me!"

Shawn raised an eyebrow. "That's because these people _are_ in love with you. You've seen how they look at you."

"Th-that…that's not right. No. You're wrong, that's not the effect I have on people."

"Come on, Rey, you know better."

Rey fell back against the headrest on his car seat, shocked.

"You're wrong…you've gotta be wrong."

Shawn let it sink in for a minute.

Rey fiddled around, setting his coffee cup in a cup holder and taking his hands in and out of the pockets of his jacket.

Was there any truth to this bombshell that HBK was trying to drop on him? Was he really that naïve? If it was true, how had he failed to notice the signs that Michaels was talking about?

Rey flinched as the thought hit him. He'd already noticed the signs.

Wait, _what_? He had?!

Well, what else were all those favors that people did for him?

_Well, why can't other people do you favors, Rey? You do people favors all the time. _His conscience asked him.

But then he remembered resentfully that just last night he was asking himself why everybody thought he was strange for being kind to people.

Rey may not have needed a reason to be nice, but the others certainly did.

Maybe what Shawn was talking about was as good a reason as any for the others to give a damn about him.

"Shawn," Rey said.

His voice was no louder than a peep now.

"Can you drive somewhere? I can't think about this right near our hotel…it feels claustrophobic."

Shawn nodded. "I know just the spot."

He started the van. Rey buckled himself wordlessly and stared off into space for a minute or two before looking back at the files in his lap. He swallowed fearfully.

Shawn hit play on the radio.

_I will remember you_…_will you remember me_…?

Rey looked through the first few papers. Michaels had interviewed-either in person or on the phone- different school teachers that Rey had had when he was going to school in America. Some of his childhood was spent in Mexico and Michaels couldn't speak any Spanish, so those records weren't present, at least. Apparently every teacher he'd had from elementary school up through high school had either wanted to adopt him or confirmed that at the very least he had been their favorite student. They all remembered him, despite the fact that they'd taught him so long ago. Which was kind of eerie. The word 'precocious' came up a few times. He found those records disturbing after a while and skipped through them.

_I'll get over you, I know I will, I'll pretend my ship's not sinking…and I'll tell myself I'm over you, 'cause I'm the King of wishful thinking… _

He flipped through the records to the more recent ones detailing his wrestling career. Unfortunately those were the worst. And the horror was upon him.

Apparently Konnan, another Hispanic wrestler who had been close friends with Rey back when Mysterio was just starting out, was no longer in any American wrestling brand but had returned to Mexico's AAA circuit not because of any personal preference but because he felt like he needed to spend some time away from Mysterio and quote "Let Rey do his own thing" for a while.

Maybe Konnan was more attached to him than he knew.

But he didn't want to think of an old friend having those kinds of secret feelings for so many years. So he didn't think about it.

Flip. Flip. Flip.

Okay, this was kind of flattering that all of the Divas had confessed to their trainers, each other, or one of the McMahons that they loved him. That was a bit of a confidence booster. Maybe the rest of these files would be something nice like all the girls planning to get him presents or something…

Oh shit.

Nobody knew this but Michaels had discovered a secret shrine in Chris Jericho's locker to Rey. Jeff Hardy had been coordinating the color of his hair dye every week with the color of Rey's outfits. Matt Hardy had been trying to steal his brothers' hair dyes. Batista got in a fight with John Morrison for joking about Rey's height. Every time Rey had a bad day in the past few years, Kane would secretly put little flowers in Rey's mail box.

CM Punk put a star (Punk loved stars, that's why many of his wrestling outfits had the pattern) sticker on Rey's locker one day to see his reaction. Rey remembered seeing it one day and smiling. All the other guys had laughed at it and asked him if his kids had broken into the locker room to redecorate. But he'd said he thought it looked cool and kind of cute. So slowly but surely Punk was covering his locker with star stickers.

Batista busted Finley's nose for calling Rey a "faggot magnet" (which was ironically, evidently 100% true because he was accidentally turning the entire roster gay for him).

Rey's car had an engine problem one week and John Cena and Cryme Tyme had gone out during one of Rey's matches and fixed it before Rey ever had to take it to get repaired.

Triple H restocked the vitamins in Rey's vitamin jar every week.

And Batista broke Umaga's arm just for looking at Rey the wrong way.

The list went on and on and on…

All the guys were doing exactly what Michaels had said; doing little favors for him to clandestinely battle with each other over Rey's affections. It didn't take much to make Rey happy.

_You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs_…

"Shawn, could you change the station, please?" Rey asked hoarsely.

Rey was a devout Christian and every love song that played seemed to be another sign from God that every single person Rey had ever met was in fact, madly in love with him.

_Whenever, wherever, we're meant to be together_…

Shakira's "Whenever, wherever" song. That was the last straw.

Shawn parked the car in some gravel at the side of the road atop a tall hill.

Rey was hyperventilating.

"Whoa! Rey, easy man! Easy there!" HBK yelped, jumping into the back seat beside Rey.

"Here! Breathe through this!" Shawn popped out a brown paper bag.

Rey held it over his mouth and the bag went rapidly in and out.

"Breathe, Rey, breathe."

When the bag expanded slower, HBK grinned. "I mixed the CD that's playing right now just for this occasion."

"Fuck…you…" Rey panted.

"You are…the worst…friend…ever," he said, glaring.

HBK smiled sweetly. "Sorry Rey, couldn't resist."

Rey was breathing well enough now that he put down the paper bag. And punched HBK straight in the nose. Hard.

Shawn fell on the floor, holding his face. He'd half-expected that. But he hadn't expected it to sting that badly.

"Feel better?" he inquired as blood leaked out of his nostrils.

"No."

Rey tore out of his seatbelt and yanked the door open, slamming it.

HBK winced. "Damn, he's mad."

As Shawn Michaels stuffed Kleenex into his nose and squeezed his eyes shut in pain, he made a mental note that the announcers were wrong when they said that Rey's opponents were 'bigger and stronger' than him. Obviously they were bigger. And you can only lift a three hundred pound man if you weigh over three hundred pounds. Rey at his heaviest was 175 pounds, so no matter how strong he was, he'd never be able to lift anybody who was heavier than that- aka pretty much all of the heavyweights. So the fact that Rey could hold his own against the heavyweights meant that he was proportionally much stronger than several of the guys on the roster.

Shawn got out of the car and found Rey making a rut in the gravel about a foot away from the metal guardrail as he paced back and forth.

Shawn thought it best to keep quiet unless he wanted to get hit in the face again.

"You know I'm afraid of heights," Rey said, pointing out at the view, which wasn't bad. The rolling hills where they were had bouquets of trees with fall leaves bursting outwards. Reds and yellows and oranges and only touches of brown. They were about a hundred feet up where they had parked. It was half-cliff half-hill.

Rey thought of every moment, every happy memory and second-guessed it, running his whole life over and over in his mind, but things kept scrambling and all the faces blurred.

He started talking a mile a minute.

"Okay, look, I get it, I never wanted to say anything, but I knew ever since I was a kid that people looked at me differently. But it was just girls at first and I didn't mind so much and then more and more guys started looking at me funny as I got older, and I didn't understand what was happening, and how come all the guys go out with women if they're after me? This can't be true, this can't be, there's no way the whole roster is secretly in love with the same person, they're all so different, they wouldn't be able to agree on anything-Why is it me? If you had the same problem Shawn, then tell me why everybody's so much more obsessive with me than they were with you?! You mentioned size, why does everybody always have to get on me about my size, what does that have to do with anything?!"

He worked himself up into such frenzy that he had trouble finding time to breathe in between the words.

"And you don't know Dave! So how am I supposed to believe you when you say that he'-? He can't be that way, somebody would know other than and you and somebody would have told me- why didn't anybody tell me about any of this, what's wrong with everybody? Why do they like me out of everyone else? Why not John Morrison or someone? Jesus Christ, I'm married and I have kids, and I just didn't think that-that…oh, God, I don't…feel good…" he gasped and his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he went anemic.

Shawn caught him before he hit the ground.

"Rey! Rey-Rey!"

And so for the second time in the same day, Shawn Michaels tried to wake Rey Mysterio.


	4. Chapter 4

**I loves all of you who are reviewing. ;) **

**Thank you so much for your comments, they make my day. I love those of you who are writing me like, letters essentially on the comments page. **

**I do intend to write at least two more Rey-Rey fanfics after this one, but I is having the writer's block like nobody's business about what to do with the end of this story.**

**Some input might be nice ;) Seriously, I read all your comments. I can't promise I'll take your suggestions EXACTLY but it might spark an idea. **

"Rey! Rey!" Michaels patted Mysterio on the cheek a couple of times. He was far paler than usual.

"Rey-Rey!" he tried. Still nothing. This wasn't good. Rey was breathing, but he was out cold. "Wake up, Rey!"

"_Oscar_!"

Rey started at the sound of his birth name and slowly opened his eyes.

"Shawn…?"

"Are you okay, man? You went down like a sack of potatoes!"

Rey was quiet for a second as he started to regain his senses.

"Shawn…is this a prank? If it's a just a joke you can call it off now. You can tell all of the guys that I fainted and everything. I don't even care anymore. Just tell me this is a joke. Please?"

Michaels gulped and he felt like he was swallowing a golf ball. "Rey, it's not a joke."

Rey couldn't speak.

"I'm gonna get you some water, okay? Just lie still for a second, don't move too much or you'll get dizzy again," Shawn slowly lowered Rey to the ground. Rey stared up at the sky and didn't say anything. He was as limp as a rag doll when Shawn Michaels came back and had to pull him up halfway into his lap so that his elbows were on HBK's knees.

Shawn held out a newly opened water bottle to his friend.  
Rey took the bottle and only drank a small sip before screwing the lip back on and setting it onto the gravel.

"Rey, you should probably drink a little more than that-"

"I don't want it," Rey said quietly.

Rey looked up at him and then stared forward for a minute.

"Even Konnan…?" he said, his voice breaking.

"No, Rey, Konnan liked you like a younger brother. He thought you were cute the way that people think puppies are cute. There wasn't any sort of…you know, other feelings."

There was some solace in that, at least. Rey had always thought of Konnan as being like an older brother.

"And Dave…?"

Shawn bit his lip. He didn't want to say it.

"And, Dave, there's no way Dave sees me that way, I mean, we're really good friends, but-"

"Rey, you know that he's had girlfriends on and off for years. Never a steady relationship. And he spends more time with you than with any girls." That was harsh, but it was best to extinguish all hope at once. It was more merciful that way.

Rey blinked and sat completely still. He was devastated.

"_Dave_? He really…? He can't! You don't understand! That's not possible!"

"How isn't it possible, Rey?"  
"It doesn't add up! I told you we were arguing! We were arguing about Randy!"

"Why would you be arguing about Randy?" HBK looked puzzled.

"We…" Rey began and shook his head. "You can't tell Triple H where he is. I'll throw you right off this cliff, I swear to God, Shawn."  
HBK's eyes went wide. At this point you wouldn't be surprised if Rey was upset enough to murder the entire roster. "I promise you, Rey, I won't tell a soul where Randy is."

"You better not. And if all this shit you gave me to think about just now is true, than you just ruined my whole damn day, Shawn. But if it's a lie…" Rey's eyes flashed. He'd never seen them do that before. It was terrifying.

"If it's all a lie, then so _help_ me, I will track you all over the planet, skewer you, cut you up while you're still breathing, and feed the pieces to condors, because this is some of the most unfunny shit I have ever dealt with in my life, you got that? I am no homophobe, but for the love of God, I am not cool with everybody trying to do…what? Molest me? What the fuck are the guys trying to do?"

HBK shrugged. "I don't know, Rey."

"ARRGH!!" he screamed, covering his ears with his hands.

"R-Rey…as you were um…what were you going to tell me about Randy?"

Rey swore a couple of times in Spanish and then looked daggers back at HBK, who froze like a cobra was aiming at him.

"I was saying that Randy stayed in our room last night."

"What?!"

"Why is that such a big deal with everybody but me?" Rey demanded.

"Well, isn't that what you were fighting about?"

"Yes. I told Dave I was going to let Randy stay in our room because I didn't want Triple H to hurt him. He didn't like the idea but I kind of made it happen anyway."

Shawn shook his head, "Oh, Rey-Rey…you have a lot to learn."

Rey narrowed his eyes at Michaels. "Do tell."

"Obviously Batista was mad that you would bring another guy into the room. Since Batista likes you, he was jealous of any competition whatsoever. He didn't have anything against Randy probably; it's just that he didn't want anybody to come between him and you. And then when he started to fight with you about it, you kind of chose Randy's side over his."

"Jesus Christ this is sounding more and more like high school to me…" Rey sighed, exasperated.

"What? Guys went after you in high school, too?"

Rey gave Shawn a resounding smack to the back of the head.

"You know what I meant, stop twisting everything!"

"Ow! Sorry, Rey! Sorry! I didn't mean it!"

Rey crossed his arms and sat thinking for a second. But the longer he thought the more nervous he looked.

"Is something wrong? What's going through your head right now?" HBK asked.

"I…I even brought Randy's luggage out of his room for him so Triple H wouldn't mess with it. I put it in my car and everything."

HBK's eyes widened. "Shit. No wonder Batista's jealous. He thinks you're picking Randy as your favorite."

Rey nodded. "And that's not even the worst of it…"

Shawn raised an eyebrow. "What did you do?"

"Last night we got in a huge argument over where Randy was gonna sleep."

"Oh no, don't tell me…"

"I offered that Randy could sleep in my bed with me," Rey confirmed, his grave tone illustrating that in hindsight he knew how that must have seemed to Batista.

"Oh, fuck…"

"But he wouldn't let me, he brought up Angie and how Randy shouldn't sleep where my wife would sleep if she were with me."

Shawn whistled. "Jeez. No wonder you didn't go through with it. That was a terrible thing for him to say, Rey."

"You don't think it was like that, do you? I wouldn't ever let anybody take Angie's place. Everybody knows that, right?" Rey looked at Shawn pleadingly.

"Of course everybody knows you love Angie, Rey! That's why all the guys haven't confessed to you that they have crushes! That's why Batista hasn't admitted to you that he likes you! Because we all know you love your wife. You've always been loyal to Angie. Batista was being a real prick to accuse you of replacing her, because anybody that's met you knows that you would never do that."

Rey nodded gratefully. "Okay."

He sighed and shrugged. "Well, I guess it worked out as a compromise because Randy slept on the floor, but I did give him some sheets and things."

Shawn chuckled. "You're a real softie, Rey."

Rey swallowed. "You know, I was so frustrated that I called him a homophobe. I didn't understand what the big deal was about giving Randy a place to sleep, I mean, there was enough room for like three people in those beds!"

"Now that's ironic, that you think Dave is a homophobe."

"I know, right? That's what I was trying to tell you! I don't think there's any way he could like me that way if he was so against another guy sleeping anywhere near me! That's why I thought you were wrong about him!"

"Yeah, that makes sense. But you haven't seen Dave behind the scenes, Rey. He would kill for you. Literally. And he would break any of the guys that tried to come between you and him in half."

"But I try to be-" Rey exhaled, attempting to explain. "I always try to be open. Why wouldn't he tell me he's-" Rey stopped short, unable to bring himself to speak the word. "Why wouldn't he tell me? I've always tried to be really accepting of people."

"Like I said, Rey, it's because we all know you love Angie. For most of the guys you're just a crush or um…eye candy."

Rey blinked, perplexed at being thought of that way.

"And so guys like Randy and Punk all know that you'd never leave your wife just to have some stupid fling with them. So they aren't gonna bother telling you they like you. Other guys like Kane and Jeff really _really_ like you, but they don't have as close of a bond with you as your best friends or your family. So they don't tell you because they know they don't have a chance with you. But Batista…"

Rey nodded.

"You care a lot about Batista. He _is_ a close friend. So it's hard for him to confess that he likes you because he doesn't want to hurt your marriage and he doesn't want to lose your friendship. If you didn't say you liked him back-which you definitely wouldn't do, I know you- you might have felt betrayed enough by his feelings that you would never talk to him again. And he doesn't want that."

Rey was quiet for a minute. "I wouldn't want that either."

Shawn blinked. He grinned to himself. That was Rey for you. Tell him a whole mess of people were in love with him and he'd freak out at first, but eventually he'd give in to his normal behavior and accept the situation as it was. A lot of guys would have decided to terminate all their friendships in WWE and abandoned ship entirely. But not Rey.

"So…what was that you were talking about? Something about how you've known for a long time that the guys have liked you?"

Rey blushed intensely and scooted away from Shawn, turning to the side so Shawn couldn't see his face and how embarrassed he was.

"Out of all that stuff I was saying, _that's_ what you focus on?"

"Rey, just because you blurted it during a moment of crisis doesn't mean that you didn't say it."  
"I don't care. I'm not talking about it."

"I noticed when I was a kid, too," Shawn admitted gently.

Rey looked at him.

"Some girls thought I was cute."

Rey didn't respond.

"Did people think you were a cute kid, Rey?"

"You'd have to ask my parents that."

"When did you notice that boys thought you were cute, too?"

Rey looked at the ground and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

He hadn't let himself admit it until today. He'd always told himself he was just likable. There was some sort of psychological mechanism that protected him from realizing what people really felt for him.

_Come on, you knew the whole time. You knew. You just wouldn't let yourself say it. You thought if you didn't say it then nobody would act on their feelings, and it's worked until now. But now you have to say it. _

_No, it can't be that, can it…?_

_Just because you didn't give it its name doesn't mean that's not what it was._

_Say it. _

_But I…I'm scared to. _

_Say it!_

_It's…all of the guys…what they feel…it's like…sexual attraction. And sometimes it's more than that. _

_Sometimes it's love. _

"Rey? You don't have to speak. You can just nod or something."

"Elementary school?" he paused, eyes fixed intently on Mysterio for a reaction.

"Junior High?"

Rey fidgeted and then nodded.

"Sorry, Rey."

Mysterio swallowed wordlessly.

"I noticed in high school," Shawn confessed. "It was easier for me to accept that kind of attraction at that age. Sorry to hear you had to figure it out when you were younger than that. You were just a kid."

"It…it wasn't bad. I've never been- none of the guys ever said or did anything to me. Or hurt me. I could only tell because of how they looked at me. People have only ever been nice to me because of how I…am."

Shawn nodded, relieved that nobody had hurt Rey. "So you noticed when the WWE guys started looking at you that way?"

Rey hesitated. "Yeah."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"To you? I didn't know that you'd had the same issues. I would have talked to you about how awkward it is, but I didn't know there was anybody else who'd been through that."

"Hey! I'm still going through it! Triple H and Taker still prefer me to you!" HBK said, exaggerating how offended he was.

Rey rolled his eyes. "I really could have lived without knowing that _wonderful_ little bit of knowledge, thank you."

"Well, now you won't have to."

Rey shook his head. "You're impossible."

"That may be true, but you still didn't answer my question. Why didn't you tell anybody to stop?"

"None of the guys have ever done me any harm. And I don't think they would. I've lived my whole life being aware of that kind of…attention. I'm used to it."

Shawn shrugged. "Yeah."

"And you never answered _my_ question. Why do the guys like me? Why not John Morrison? Isn't he supposed to be the pretty boy out of all of us?"

"Yeah, he is, but he's such a prima donna that he's no fun to be around. And yeah, he's handsome, Rey, but you want to know what it is that they like?"  
There was a devilish gleam in HBK's eyes. Maybe he shouldn't have asked what it was that other men found so alluring about him. Maybe he'd rather not know after all.

Rey leaned back, bewildered. "Uh…no?"

"You're _adorable_, Rey," Shawn whispered, leaning in about an inch away from Rey's face.

Rey turned about eight shades darker, blushing so fiercely that his cheeks nearly gave off heat.

"Don't you make me sock you in the face again," he warned.

HBK leaned back from him, smirking ear to ear. "I'm serious, Rey. You're not just cute, either. Cute is a passing thing. Some cute puppies turn into ugly dogs. But you…you age, but you don't really age. You're absolutely adorable."

Rey would have taken Shawn's remarks as extremely patronizing (and would have socked him in the face again) if it hadn't been for how serious Michaels' tone of voice was.

Rey stared at him. "You mean me looking like a four year old when I was twelve? Oh, _that_ was fun. I think I'll go back and do that again."

Shawn shrugged. "Well it might've sucked then, but look who's laughing now. You look like you're twenty and you're…" Shawn squinted and scrunched up his brow, trying to remember.

"Thirty-five," Rey informed him.

"My point exactly."

But in all honesty, Rey, it's not just your looks. Or your badass tattoos."

Rey raised an eyebrow at that.

HBK smiled. "It's that you're so sweet."

Rey did _not_ want to be put in the same category as candy.

(Too late, he was already in there).  
"Come again?"

"You're almost always smiling, you're always the one to stop fights, not start them. You're talkative, and fun, and easygoing, and you joke with everybody. Little things make you happy and you always like to share your happiness. You give great advice and know when to comfort somebody and when to leave them alone. You're a father figure to the younger guys and respectful towards the older ones. You truly value all of us. You take care of all of us. If the guys have the hots for you, it's because you're such a good person."

Rey let all that sink in for a second. He opened his mouth and inhaled in something that sounded akin to a gasp.

_See? _

_Why were you so afraid, anyway?_

_I don't know. _

_I guess it was love more than anything after all. _

_Yeah. _

_And it could be worse._

_What could be worse than everybody being secretly madly in love with you? Isn't that freaky enough?_

_Well, I'm sure there's something worse…you just can't think of it right now._

"Maybe I should stop being nice, then," Rey said sarcastically.

"Would you even know how to do that?" Michaels asked.

Rey shifted. "No," he admitted awkwadly.

HBK laughed. "Oh man, Rey, you crack me up."

Rey sighed after a second. They both looked out over the beautiful view before them.

"This was a nice spot to tell me."

"Are you really afraid of heights?" Shawn asked, standing up and walking to the guard rail, leaning back against it.

"Yeah," Rey said, flinching a little when he saw Shawn so close to the edge.

"Really? But you jump off cages during cage matches all the time!"

"That's different. I feed off the crowd when I'm out there. It…the fans, they're so loud when they cheer for you, that that's all you can hear. And that's all that goes through your mind," Rey explained, smiling. "And you feel like you can fly if you wanted to."

Shawn leaned further and further back on the rail.

"Don't do that. You're making me nervous," Rey said distractedly.

Shawn grinned and sat back down next to Rey on the gravel. He winked. "Maybe I was trying to fly, Rey-Rey."

"I really doubt an old dog like you could learn a trick like that," Rey teased.

Shawn made to punch Rey playfully in the shoulder, but Rey caught his hand lightly.

"Damn, you're fast."

"It's my job to be," Rey said, chuckling and released Shawn's fist.

The breeze blew across them both.

"So…what do you think I should do?" Rey murmured.

"You mean how should you deal with the guys when you get back to the hotel?"

"Yeah."

"Well, first of all, they were all planning on going to the mall here. So we're gonna drive back there before we go to the hotel, if that's okay," Shawn informed

"I'm cool with that. But the mall here's lame, man, there's like four stores or something."

"Yeah, but they couldn't find anything else to do," Shawn said, shrugging.

"Kay. Well, what am I gonna do when we get to the mall? Should I just act normal, or-"

"Go in and make out with everybody."

Rey sighed exasperatedly and smacked Shawn to the back of the head again.

Shawn rubbed the sore spot and pretended to be thinking seriously, but really he couldn't speak because his ears were ringing. Rey hit hard when he was mad.

"I'm…I'm serious." Rey said quietly, swallowing. "I don't know what to do."

"Rey?"

Rey didn't take his eyes off the ground.

"Rey, you should just go in there and be yourself. Just act like yourself. Do what you think is best."

"But that's what I'm asking you! I don't know what I should do!"

"Rey, don't you want to know why I picked today to tell you all this?"

Rey blinked. "Yes. Yes, I do."

"I decided to choose to tell you that all the guys secretly have a thing for you, not just because we had a free day today, but because I think today is D-Day."

"Today is a reenactment of an Allied invasion of France?" Rey asked, puzzled.

"I meant that figuratively."

"Oh, okay, whatever."

"Today is the day that I predicted all the guys would start going nuts," Shawn explained.  
"What do you mean by that?"

"That's why I wanted you to come out here with me. If you hadn't suggested driving away from the hotel, I would have. I thought it would be safest for you to get away from them."

"What- what do you mean? Should I- do I need to leave the country or something? Am I going to get abducted? What are you talking about?" Rey demanded.

"You read the files, Rey. You know that Dave's behavior has been escalating. He's been hurting people. And he's been hurting them out of some misguided sense that he's protecting you. Everybody else is harmless."

"Are you calling _Triple H_ harmless?!"

Shawn snorted. "He'd abduct _me_ way before he'd go after you. I told you, he likes me better. So there."

Rey stared at him, dumbfounded. "Jesu cristo…"

He shook himself.

"Wait, you honestly think Dave is dangerous to me?"

Shawn nodded gravely.

"Dave. Batista. My tag-team partner. My friend. Dangerous. To _me_?" Rey frowned. "No, you're wrong. Dave would never lay a finger on me. I know him."

"Rey-"

"I _know_ _him_."

"Rey, just let me speak, okay?"

Rey glared at him silently.

"Thanks. Listen, I'm not saying he would ever hurt you."

Rey's expression changed dramatically. He blinked blankly at Shawn.

"I'm saying he could end up hurting the rest of us."

Rey considered the time Batista had broken Umaga's arm because of him. Damage to the other guys was a definite possibility.

"But…why do you think he'd go off today?" Rey asked.

"Because you received all this nice stuff from fans, so now he probably feels like he's competing with fans. And it's gotten to the point where literally the entire roster likes you, man, so Dave feels like he's got a world of competition within WWE. And that's recent, too, I mean, you just won over Jericho as the most recent member of your secret fan club. And then the icing on the cake is that you were having an argument with Dave over Randy Orton."

Rey sighed and rubbed his eyelids.

This was almost too much to take in in just one day. What was going to happen next? Was HBK an alien in disguise?

Was Rey hallucinating this whole thing?

Wait, maybe he was still asleep. Yes, that was soap-opera-esque, but damn it, it could be possible. He'd had long, convoluted dreams before. Lots of people have. Some of them have storylines. Storylines? Oh! This could be a storyline for Smackdown! Yes, it was weird, but so was a lot of their storylines! Why couldn't it be the case that Rey was the only one who hadn't been told about a storyline?

Rey felt better all of a sudden, like maybe there was some way that Shawn was wrong after all. And that Rey's conscience was wrong too.

There was one way to find out about the 'I'm still asleep and this is all a weird, weird, dream' theory. He pinched himself.

Nope, still staring out over that damn cliff. _Why _did they have to be so high off the ground?

He pinched harder. Ow. He rubbed his skin. He might've actually bruised himself.

The goddamn cliff was still there. Doing cliff things. Like being frighteningly tall.

But…but what about the storyline? Maybe this was a storyline that all of the wrestlers were secretly in love with Rey Mysterio and that he didn't know until like a week before the next taping of Smackdown. That would give him enough time to have a legitimate, realistic reaction to the news, but also enough time in between shows that he could regain his composure before going on next Friday and addressing the situation. Then maybe after the show next Friday they'd tell him that it was a storyline and that he could be in on the joke now. But that they'd just wanted a realistic initial reaction to the news that several fucking heavyweights secretly wanted to rape him or something, oh, dear God…

Oh, Jesus, the more he thought about that idea the less it made sense. He didn't even need to ask Shawn if it was a storyline. There was no way. Because Mr. McMahon didn't know how Rey would react if they lied to him and said all the guys liked him. He could go off and murder everybody. He could move back to Mexico overnight. He could fake his own death. He could go on leave when they didn't want him to. He could demand a crazy raise to compensate for the psychological trauma. He could kill himself. He could go batshit insane. He could quit. Or, the worst thing for Mr. McMahon…he could sue.

No. There was no way that this was a storyline.

_Once that hit Rey, his stomach dropped out and he felt suddenly very, very…cold?_ Nervous? Concerned?

_Scared._

_You're scared. _

_Well, maybe that's just the cliff talking. I hate cliffs. Cliffs are God's way of mocking my fear of heights. _

_No. _

_But…there is a cliff here…_

_Yes, there's a cliff, pendejo, but you're not just scared of the cliff!_

_What am I scared of, then?_

His conscience wouldn't answer him there. Maybe he had to ask it a different question.

_Am I scared of the guys?_

_No, just one._

_I'm scared of one of them?_

_Yes. _

_Big Show._

_Smaller._

_Khali?_

_Smaller_

_Kane?_

_Smaller._

_Triple H?_

_FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE AFRAID OF!!!_

His conscience was right. Rey could name other wrestlers all day. He could keep postponing the inevitable all day long…

_Who am I afraid of?_

_Say it._

_I don't know who you're talking about. I really don't._

_Say his name._

_But…why…why is it him...?_

_Who is he?_

_Dave. It's Dave Batista. _

_Why am I afraid of him?_

_Because._

_Because it's your fault that he likes you._

"I- I haven't been leading him on, have I?" Rey said suddenly.

"No, Rey."

Rey gulped and shook his head, tearing up a little. "I would never, ever hurt Dave's feelings…even if he's- I don't care if he's gay, I don't care what he is. He's my best friend, Shawn…and I need to tell him to stop. Somehow I need to tell him to stop."

Shawn scooted closer and when Rey didn't move he reached out and hugged the cruiserweight, rocking him a little.

Rey sniffed and hid his face in Shawn's shoulder.

"You'll be okay, Rey."

Mysterio tried his hardest to hold it in, he couldn't believe it, and he didn't even know why he was so upset. But to know that Dave was hurting bothered Rey much more than the fact that Dave had been hiding his crush on him. Which was a weird thing to discover; that he actually didn't mind all the attention from other men. (As long as they didn't act on their feelings without his consent). He didn't want to seem weaker –or gayer– than he already had to Shawn, so he tried to stifle the tears.

He remembered he could cry in front of Angie without a second thought. And his parents, when he was younger and still living with them.

And Dave. When Eddie died, he remembered crying very hard in front of Dave.

Rey lost it and started sobbing uncontrollably into Shawn's shoulder.

"It's okay for you to cry, Rey, its okay."

"I feel so bad, Shawn, I feel so bad that I can't love him back…I feel so guilty…it's my fault that he likes me, isn't it? It's my fault…" Rey wailed.

"Rey, it's not your fault. It just happened. It's nobody's fault, Dave just…I don't know."

"Oh, God…I'm so sorry…I want to tell Dave that I'm so sorry…"


	5. Chapter 5

**I must admit, I made myself cry when Rey-Rey cried…I loves him so…anyhoo, I thought it would be nice to alternate the comedy element back in for this chapter so that people could have a teeny bit of relief from tha DRAMA that is Dave Batista ;)**

Shawn pulled his van up in front of the mall. They'd said a lot on the drive there.

Pretty much right after they'd gotten in the car Rey announced, "I going to take all these papers and burn them."

"Go ahead, I have copies," Shawn answered.

Frustrated, Rey eyed the copious pile of junk in Michaels' van. He dug through it and found what he had been looking for. Rey piled on the heavy blue blanket probably knitted by Michael's grandmother at some point in time.

"Rey, that just makes you look like Cousin It. And everybody knows Cousin It is also cute as hell, so I don't think that's gonna help."

"I don't care. This way _I_ at least can't see anybody."

"Jesus, man, you're regressing, that's what three-year-olds do-"

"JUST DRIVE, GODDAMMIT!" Rey screamed.

Shawn sighed and clicked back the parking brake, starting the car.

"So…you're still going through the first stage of grief?"

"What are you mumbling about now, Michaels?" Rey mumbled from within the muffled recesses of his blanket fortress.

"There are five stages of grief according to psychologists. You're going through the first one. Denial."

"Unnh…" Rey groaned.

"The second stage is anger and the third stage is bargaining. And the fourth stage is-"

"And the fourth stage is me kicking you in the junk! Now shut up and drive!"

"Fine. Just saying."

Minutes later it looked like they would drive down the road in utter silence until they reached their destination. Which was fine. Good, actually.

"You're on the second stage, by the way."

Now they were blinking in the bright sunlight and staring at this tiny, tiny mall. Somewhere in there was a whole mess of heavyweights pining their big scary hearts out after Rey. And a lone cruiserweight had to confront them all somehow.

"I think I'd rather go back to that cliff and jump off of it than do this," Rey said.

"Well, I'm not gonna get you a parachute, so you better do this instead," Shawn responded.

"But you never said what I should do about all of them," Rey said weakly.

"I didn't know what to do at first with Taker and Triple H, either. But when I went to talk to them both it just kind of came to me what to do."

"What did _you_ do?" Rey asked.

"Remember my joke earlier that you should make out with everybody?"

Rey nodded hesitantly.

HBK sighed, "I was young and reckless, and that's what I pretty much did, I went in and made out with one of them. I forget which one. Taker? No, maybe it was Triple H…anyway, I don't even remember anymore. They're still fighting over me. It provides us all with some entertainment every now and then and a little competition is healthy, I think."

"I have no way to tell you how many problems I think you have, Shawn."

HBK winked.

"Well then, compared to my life, this mess should be easy for you to clean up."

Rey opened his mouth and then shook his head. He got out of the car and just stood there for a second.

Shawn parked and got out, watching Rey from a distance.

The younger man walked hesitantly towards the mall buildings, his hands buried in his pockets. Undoubtedly he was fingering the mask stashed away in there. Shawn saw Rey flinch as he found it and brought it out, tracing over the lines and the eagles adorning each side. Rey looked like he'd touched an electric fence instead of a mask. But when he had that mask with him he felt stronger. Like it could protect him somehow.

Like he could…_fly_.

Rey smiled subtly.

He tucked the mask gently back into his pocket and looked up at the building before him, bounced a few times on the balls of his feet and dashed in.

Shawn ran after him to see what he would do.

Rey sensed an aura of animosity, jealousy, and uh…lust in the air. He had no clue where its source was. It could be one of the guys causing him to feel this way or all of them.

There wasn't any active chaos going on. It was guerilla warfare. Girl-style fighting. When any of the Divas got mad at each other they wouldn't just punch the enemy out and get it over with. And they wouldn't just avoid each other if they couldn't ever form a truce. They would systematically destroy each other using words and each others' reputations.

Even though Aalyah was still young, she was just starting to show signs of participating in girl-fighting with her mother. When Angie forbade their daughter from doing something there was some sort of look and body language that they'd assume. And that meant war. Rey recognized it the second time it started happening and by then he knew the proper response for him to take in that situation; grab Dominik and run like hell before he got caught in the crossfire.

But this was a different situation. This was men girl-fighting with each other. He had no idea what the proper response to take was. (Because they were probably doing it wrong.)

So he bought a megaphone and batteries from RadioShack and stood out on the ground floor of the mall.

(It was a small town so there were like four other people in the mall besides the wrestlers, so this wasn't nearly as embarrassing as it would have been in a large town.)

"ATTENTION ALL WWE MEMBERS; PLEASE REPORT YOUR ASSES TO THE GROUND FLOOR IMMEDIATELY!"

There was a sudden stampede of foot traffic and several near-collisions.

John Cena and Cryme Tyme skidded out of a music store.

Big Show and Kane burst out of a furniture store and Triple H bolted downstairs from a Bath and Bodyworks. Various others scrambled out of various places and ran down.

Everybody wondered at first why John Cena was standing there silently –aka the eighth wonder of the world, a moment in which Cena was not talking– but then they got to the scene and promptly hit the off switch on their vocal chords.

Rey had decided to go with a position that he'd seen Angie take on more than one occasion when she was mad at him and he was utterly clueless as to what he'd done wrong. His legs were locked into a power stance, spread even with his shoulders, and he crossed his arms ─ with the special and utterly terror-inducing touch of methodically tapping his fingertips onto his opposite arm in the order of index finger to pinky.

When the dust settled and everyone appeared to be there Rey spoke again.

"Is everyone done shopping and getting all their shit in order?"

They all nodded. It was like a game of Simon says. They wouldn't want to speak unless Rey specifically gave them permission to.

"Is everyone present and accounted for?"

They shook their heads.

"Who's missing?"

Cena raised his hand.

"Speak," Rey commanded.

Cena saluted (not sarcastically, either) and then said clearly, "Jeff Hardy and C.M. Punk are probably still in Hot Topic together."

He put his salute down.

"What does he mean 'still in Hot Topic'? Have they been in there the whole day? How many black clothes do those guys need?"

"It-" Jericho started to say, but was cut off by an elbow jab from Triple H, who shook his head urgently at his fellow blonde.

Jericho raised his hand.

"Yeah, Chris?"

"It…uh, it isn't clothes. I walked by there on my way downstairs and they were fighting over the last like, stick-"

"Pencil," HBK corrected.

"Pencil of eyeliner," Jericho finished.

"It's called guy liner when men use it, dude," Cena whispered.

Rey sighed. "Jesus Christ, will those two ever stop fighting?"

Everybody shrugged.

"All right, I'm gonna go get them. We're all leaving if that's okay with everybody," Rey announced.  
"Oh, yeah."

"Yeah, sure. "

"Of course."

"We're ready to go, Rey."

They all followed him as he went upstairs to Hot Topic. There was an art to staying the correct distance behind an angry Rey Mysterio. If you were too far away, he'd think you weren't cooperating with him and you were at risk of being chewed out. If you were too close you were in imminent danger of being death glared until you melted until the floor.

They all halted when Rey stopped in the doorway.

"Ah, damn it, they're really going at it now," Shawn muttered.

Rey exhaled in annoyance and held up his megaphone.

Everybody plugged their ears.

"PHILLIP JACK BROOKS!"

C.M. Punk paused upon hearing his legal name only to get tackled to the floor by Jeff.

"JEFFREY NERO HARDY!"

Now Jeff paused only to get slapped by Punk.

"Get off me, man, Rey's trying to talk to us!"

"Fuck you, man! Stop hitting me!" Jeff said, trying to strangle Punk.

"You started it!" Punk gasped and knocked Hardy off of him and into a clothes rack.

"I did not!"

"You did!"

"No, YOU did!" Jeff did a running tackle of Punk into the wall.

Apparently they'd knocked over pretty much anything in the whole store. All the t-shirts were strewn helter-skelter across the floor, all the shelves toppled over. Several of the glass display cases that held rock band t-shirts on display were broken.

Rey was so over the whole thing it wasn't even funny.

The two gothic/ punk rock-styled wrestlers were currently rolling around in the middle of the store floor.

Rey gave one short exhale that sounded similar to a bear snorting before it proceeded to maul a camper to death. He handed off the megaphone to Shawn and before anyone could blink he catapulted through the air and made contact with both guys via slamming both of their heads to the floor with his hands. Rey rolled out of his tackle and stood up.

The two moaned and rolled around.

"Ow, Rey…Jesus..." Punk groaned.

"Fuuuuucckkk…" Jeff said, clutching his skull.

"Are you two ready to listen to me, now?" Rey intoned.

"Yes…" they both said in unison.

"Good. Now get. The fuck. Up."

Hardy scrambled up and Punk braced himself to a standing position with the help of the counters.

Rey started counting off tasks on his fingers.

"One: apologize. Two: pay for the damages. Three: we are going to the hotel to grab our stuff and go to the airport and go home. Got it?"

"Yes…" they moaned together.

They both mumbled apologies to the purple-mohawked girl behind the counter who'd been watching apathetically the whole time. She popped a bubble of her green gum and accepted a hundred dollars cash from each of them to pay for the glass cases and wrecked shelves.

"I'm so, so sorry for this…" Rey told her sincerely.

The girl grinned. "Hey, no problem. This store isn't gonna be in business much longer, anyway. Nobody out here in hick town knows what the fuck a Goth even is. But hey, thanks for making my day more interesting. Cool flip, by the way."

"Uh, sure. You're welcome. Bye."

"Come back soon," the girl said half-sarcastically and popped her gum again.

They all went to the parking lot.

Rey stopped in his tracks. "Oh, shit. How could I forget somebody?" he glanced around manically.

"Where the hell is Randy?!"

They all swallowed. "Oh, no…"

"Rey…" Triple H said gently, tapping him on the shoulder and switching his plastic shopping bag (holding a jar of exfoliating gel inside) to the hand behind his back.

"What did you do to him?!" Rey snapped.

"I didn't do anything to Randy! We made up, like you said to, and he went off in another direction than me," Triple H explained.

"Witness!" John Cena shouted, pointing at himself. "He ain't lyin', Rey-Rey. I saw it. They apologized to each other and it was beautiful and all brotherly love and shit, but Randy done took off, man, he's like, in the wind," Cena said, qualifying Triple H's claims.

Rey backed off. He shook his head. "Don't tell me. It's Dave, isn't it?"

They were all silent. From the way Rey spoke those words, they all heard it. They knew that he'd found out about their collective hidden affections for him. And they knew that he'd found out while he'd been out that day with Shawn Michaels. So they knew that Shawn told him everything- including the fact that Dave was the worst one of them all.

"Yeah, it's Dave," Triple H murmured.

"Where are they?" Rey demanded, biting his lip.

"Oh, shit, I see him," Cena said.

"What the fuck are you talking about, 'I see him'?! We don't know where he is!" Rey blurted.

Shawn turned Rey around.

Mysterio's jaw dropped. "You have _got_ to be kidding me…"

Randy Orton was on top of a flag pole on the opposite side of the mall.

Rey took off running and everyone struggled to keep up with him.

"Jesus, Rey, chill, man! Slow the hell down!" Cena shouted and they all hit the brakes, panting, as they came to a stop a few yards away from the flagpole.

Rey wasn't even out of breath.

But he didn't even know what to do or say anymore. This was shaping up to be the worst day of his adult life. By a long shot.

Dave Batista was stalking around the flagpole like a lion that was waiting for a leopard to fall out of its tree.

"Hi, Rey!" Randy called out and waved, then stumbled a little and clung tighter to the pole.

"You want the megaphone back, Rey-Rey?" Shawn Michaels offered.

Rey shook his head. He thought for about half a second. Then he went into autopilot.

"Big Show! Kane!"

They came to the front.

"Get over to the flagpole and catch Randy when he jumps so he doesn't hurt himself."

They nodded. "Right, right."

Then they looked over and saw Batista still standing there.

"Dave, calm down and back up, okay?" Rey called.

"What the hell are you doing here, Rey, picking sides again?" Batista accused.

"Well, what the hell are you doing chasing people up flagpoles for?"

Kane and Big Show went over as Rey got Batista's full attention. Batista was forced to stand still as Rey came closer to him.

"What are you doing, Dave?"

"He started it, he-"

Randy jumped and landed safely in Big Show's arms and was quickly set down.

Batista's eyes flashed, like he knew his prey was escaping.

Kane (of course) recognized that look and stepped protectively in front of Randy, balling his huge hands into fists.

Batista was cut off.

Rey exhaled, trying to calm himself down, trying to separate himself from the personal matters involved in the situation.

"Dave, just please talk to me. Please."

"He started it," Batista insisted.

"How?"

Batista tried to talk but nothing came out.

"You don't understand, Rey, you just don't ever fucking get it," he said under his breath.

Rey flinched. "Try me," he said quietly.

"I don't even know where to start," Batista growled darkly, hinting that he thought Rey was the densest idiot of all time.

Rey narrowed his eyes. It was time to let Batista in on just how much he knew now.

"What were you going to do? Break Randy's arm next?"

A wave of whispers passed through all the guys.

Batista swallowed as an answer.

"Explain to me why the hell you keep fighting everybody behind my back."

Batista looked frustrated at that. "Fuck you, man. I don't want to talk about it. I have a problem with Randy and it has nothing to do with you."

Rey gave a short sigh. "Okay. I-"

"There is no _you_, Rey!" Batista interrupted. "I can have a problem of my own that is completely unrelated to you and that _you _can't solve for me! So get off my back!"

"But, Dave-" Rey tried.

"FUCK YOU, REY! WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO YOU?! YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME!!" Batista exploded.

He stormed off and Rey attempted to follow him. Shawn ran after Rey, and everybody else ran after Shawn. It was a mess.

Batista's car screeched out of the parking lot before Rey could get close, which was a feat, because when Rey wanted to chase someone down the guys often joked that he could also nearly catch a Cheetah in the process.

"Rey, just let him go, and just leave him alone for a while," Shawn advised, putting a hand on Mysterio's shoulder.

Rey shook his head slowly.

"No, I…I can't do that. I need to talk to him."

"Rey, I don't even know if it's safe for you to be near him right now," Shawn warned.

Rey's voice caught in his throat for a second. "He wouldn't even hurt me. I know that. And I don't even care if he does. Maybe I did something to deserve it. Maybe I hurt him."

Rey tried to sniff quietly, but that was impossible.

"Rey…I don't know what Dave was talking about. Honest. I don't remember doing anything all day that he could be mad at me for. He just went off on me and I ended up here," Randy explained.

"I know. I know you didn't do anything, Randy. It's just him. You didn't do anything wrong. It's just Dave," Rey assured, choking up a little.

"Rey looks sad," Jeff said suddenly.

Rey stared at him. If Jeff Hardy said he looked sad then it must have been blindingly obvious. And it must have been true.

Rey quickly brushed furiously at his eyes and didn't meet anyone's looks.

"I-I'm not that upset, really…I'm fine. It's no big deal. It's…it's nothing," Rey lied.

C.M. Punk watched Rey try to hide his sadness from all of them and he felt terrible for it. Being Straight Edge meant that he didn't want any "poison" like alcohol or drugs to enter his body. But he didn't feel comfortable storing lies in it either. Because he saw that they lies they were living were poisoning Rey.

"Rey," he spoke up. "We've all been lying to you."

Mysterio's eyes widened. He couldn't believe that they might actually admit to it.

"We all fight with each other in the locker room over stuff that we think will impress you. We all like you, Rey, and for some of us it's like an infatuation. And for some of us it's like an addiction. But we all care about you, and if you feel uncomfortable, we'll stop drooling over you."

When Punk finished talking he walked up to Rey and bent down, gently hugging the smaller wrestler.

Rey blinked at first, taken by surprise. Then he wrapped his arms around Punk and set his face onto Punk's t-shirt.

He hadn't realized that he'd needed a hug so badly until he got one.

Punk, although he seemed to be comprised of nothing but long limbs and pointy joints, was actually pretty soft.

"I'm really sorry you had to find out this way," Punk whispered, rubbing Rey's back.

Rey breathed and squeezed Punk a little. "Yeah, me too. But…I'm not mad at you guys. I'm not. I just…I don't know why nobody told me."

"You mean you don't mind that we like you?" Jeff piped up.

Punk let go of Rey and the luchador scanned over all of the guys' faces. John Cena looked at the ground and Triple H was chewing his thumb nervously.

"I…I don't know yet. I just found out today. I don't know how I feel about any of this whole situation just yet. I'm sorry but I just don't know how to handle it right now. I feel like I'm still in shock and-and if I could just get a few days to think it over, we could all talk about it again later. Is that…is that okay?" Rey asked anxiously.

They all nodded. "Yeah, of course Rey."

"Take all the time you need."

"We're sorry."

"Yeah, we're really sorry we hid it from you."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, Rey, I'm sorry," Triple H said sadly.

Rey gave a small smile. He wanted to forgive them but he couldn't bring himself to just yet. The shock was still too recent and he couldn't really judge what his actual reaction would be just yet.

"But we're not all like Dave," Punk said bracingly. "Some of us just want to be friends with you, Rey, that's it."

Rey could tell that Punk was one of those people that liked Rey not for looks but based on his personality, like Michaels had said earlier. It was good to know that not all the guys were basing their obsessions on surface material.

"And some of us just want to look and not touch," Shawn said, grinning.

Cena snorted.

Rey raised an eyebrow at HBK.

Michaels had better not touch him since he'd already found out how hard Rey could hit.


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm not gonna lie, once I got into humor-mode it was hard for me to leave. So just bear with me for this chapter if you prefer to fangirl (yes, I use it as a verb) over the uber-drama. The uber drama is about to get even more…dramatic really soon, don't you worry. **

FLIGHT CANCELLED

The stupid goddamn motherfucking little neon words read. As in, WWE's flight was cancelled.

"Why does God hate me this weekend?" Rey Mysterio thought out loud standing amidst all of his heavyweight friends in the airport in Podunk Town, America.

This place was so backwards and sparsely populated that everyone swore they saw people driving around in carts with horses.

And they weren't Amish people.

"Well, on the bright side we can hang out here in the Twilight Zone a bit longer," Shawn said darkly.

"How fucking long are we gonna be delayed again?" Cena demanded.

"We just read you the thing like eight times. The next flight's not out until tomorrow morning," Triple H said, annoyed.

"Aw, shit, man, I hafta call my girl," Cena said, scrambling to get his cell out.

All of the guys thought to pull their cell phones out after Cena said that. So they all discovered simultaneously that there was no-

"NO FUCKING SERVICE ARRRRGHH!!!" Triple H screamed.

"Goddamn it," several of them muttered.

"Are we really in the Twilight Zone?" Jeff Hardy asked densely.

"No, but it sure as hell feels like it. Especially now," Shawn commented.

"I haven't gotten any cell phone service since we got here," Randy confessed worriedly.

"You make it sound so serious, like you're announcing that you haven't gotten any sex in like twelve years," Punk said, rolling his eyes. "It's just a phone. Calm down."

"Although that is true that Randy isn't getting any…" Shawn said, chuckling.

"Ah, damn it all to hell…" Rey muttered and wandered around in circles trying to find a single tile where his cell would function. No dice.

"I do too have sex with people!" Randy contradicted loudly.

"Oh, really? 'People'? How many people Randy?" Triple H put in.

"He lost count. He's gonna go skanking up the town when we get back, I just know it. Watch it guys, we've got ourselves a sex addict," Shawn teased.

"ARRGH!!" Randy shouted in frustration. He wished Rey would come to his rescue, but the cruiserweight was too distracted at the moment and was blocking out all noise they were making. He tried walking backwards to get phone service, which made absolutely no sense but he was willing to try it.

"FUCKING BITCH-ASS PHONE SERVICE!!!" Cena swore suddenly and chucked his cell clear across the room, where it clattered into a wall and hit the floor. Everyone's eyes followed it across. Then they watched Cena sprinting across the room and stomping the phone into submission.

They all witnessed this with great interest and shook their heads.

"That's his eighth phone," JTG of Cryme Tyme announced.

"This month," Shad clarified.

"Damn," Jeff Hardy said.

"They must love him over at his Sprint store…" Shawn said sarcastically.

"I think its dead now, John! You can come back now!" Rey called, having been startled out of his reverie only to wander off, grumbling, "Jesus, he attacks everything…"

"Is your middle name 'overkill'?" Shawn inquired Cena as he strode triumphantly back to the group.

"Fuck you, man," Cena said and crossed his arms.  
"Oh my God, Cena knows what the word 'overkill' means! Rey, give him a gold star!" Triple H teased.

He looked around. "Hey, where's Rey?"

"Somebody kill me…" Mysterio murmured, lying on his back on the single luggage carousel the little airport had. It was really sluggish and was slowly carrying Rey closer to the little black flapped tunnel where the suitcases were loaded onto a plane.

"There is no phone service anywhere in this whole damn place…" he sighed disappointedly as he stared at the screen of his cell phone.

He flipped it closed and said sarcastically, "Goodbye, cruel world…" as he moved along at a snail's pace atop the conveyor belt.

"REYYYYY!!!!" Triple H (of all people) screamed in horror and the whole pack of wrestlers bolted over to his rescue.

"REEYYY DON'T DO IT YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOOOORRR!!!"

Rey raised an eyebrow and sat up, sliding his legs around and facing the guys running towards him with his legs crossed. He rolled his eyes and watched them through his fingers.

As though it were humanly possible to be conscious and still manage to get murdered by a device that moved along at the speed of a one-armed sloth.

They screeched to a halt.

Why was that?

Rey found himself airborne a split second later as Dave Batista picked him up by the scruff of the neck. (Really it was the collar of his jacket, but it looked like it was the back of his neck.)

"Getting melodramatic in your old age?" Batista asked him as he dangled Rey in the air with one hand.

_Oh, so you bother to obsess over me but you can't remember I'm not even middle-aged yet?_ Rey thought to himself.

"Put. Me. Down," Rey intoned, not happy.

Batista shrugged. "Why should I?"

"Now."

Dave knew that look and decided he'd rather not get kicked in the junk today.

He set Rey down onto the floor quickly.

Rey sighed and muttered, "I'm gonna go find a phone that works and call my family." And he walked off.

"You morons really expected Rey to die from a luggage conveyor belt?" Batista asked incredulously, staring down the others.

They all shrugged and twiddled their fingers sheepishly.

"Well, did you know that three to thirteen people a year get killed by vending machines?" C.M. Punk said.

"Really?" Triple H asked, surprised.

"How do they manage _that_?" Jericho questioned.

"They get crushed when the machines fall on them, so I guess they're pushing them too hard or something," Punk illustrated.

"Damn, man, that's depressing," Jeff said.

"Your life is not worth a fucking candy bar, I can tell you that," Jericho put in.

"_Your_ life might be worth a Sunkist. I would _kill _for an orange soda right now," Triple H said.

"Pfft," Cena said. "Rey-Rey would fucking _own_ the shit out of a vending machine."

"I would hope he would win in a fight against an inanimate object," Shawn stated dryly.

C.M. Punk giggled.

"Fuck you, man. I'm leaving all you posers for more interesting people than this," Cena declared.

Randy grabbed his sleeve. "Wait, don't! We should all stay together!"

"Why?!" Cena demanded.

"Because this is a small town and I don't know if some of us are gonna make it out of here unless we stick together."

"Why is that, now, Randy?" Shawn inquired, confused.

"Well, there's like KKK people and all sorts of racists out here and stuff and we have Dave, and Rey, and Cryme Tyme, and I'm just worried…" Randy whined.

"Oh. That's what that funky building with dudes in white hoods in lawn chairs out in front of it was," Jericho remarked.

"You saw a _what_ now?" Punk hissed.

"You did not!" Triple H disagreed.

"You are a lying motherfucker, Jericho, those places ain't real no more," Cena argued.

Cryme Tyme whispered in his ears.

"Oh, they are still around? Damn. That sucks ass. My bad," Cena corrected.

"Well, I don't know about y'all," Jeff said in his thick southern accent. "But I think if those racists caught Batista, then he'd beat the fuck outta them instead of the other way around."

They all snuck glances at Batista, who had wandered away and was currently brooding a few yards from where Rey had found a pay phone.

"Yeah, he definitely would," they all said in unison.

Rey found a phone that had a dial tone and dropped some quarters in it, pressing the keys to call his house in San Diego, California.

His daughter Aalyah answered.

"Hi, baby girl! Can you put Mommy on the phone? Thank you so much."

Rey waited for a second and his wife Angie picked up.

"Hi baby. God, it's good to hear your voice," Rey sighed.

"Upset? No, no, I'm not that upset. Why do you say that?"

Angie explained it to him.

Rey gave a short exhale. "A tone in my voice? What tone, I don't hear a-"

"Okay, fine, I have a tone. Yeah."

"Why? Oh, well, I was just calling to let you know that our flight's been cancelled." "Yeah."

"Well, I just really wanted to come home tonight and see you and the kids."

Angie wanted to know the real reason why her husband was upset.

"It's…it's complicated. It's just that this place is kind of-"

Rey looked around to make sure none of the natives were anywhere close.

He whispered his next sentences anyway.

"_This place is pretty weird…I'm calling on a pay phone. Honest to God. Yeah. There's no cell phone service here. It's like we're in a black hole._"

Or a time space continuum. Or something of that variety.

"Yeah, I think we're gonna have to book another hotel. I don't know where. I guess we'll have to find someplace close to the airport so we don't miss our flight tomorrow."

"I know, I'm sorry. I know. But you want to know why the flight's cancelled? They have like four planes here and the one we were supposed to be on broke down. So they're waiting for another one to come back to the airport."

"No, seriously. No, for real! Yeah, I know, it's crazy!" Rey laughed.  
"But yeah, you should cross your fingers or pray or something because I swear I feel like I'm totally jinxed this weekend. I hope I manage to get home tomorrow and that they don't cancel our next flight, too. I hope it doesn't crash, either."

"It leaves at 11 AM."

"Yeah, I know the plane probably won't go down, Angie, I know," Rey chuckled. He was often hesitant to worry his wife, but in all reality Angie was a very difficult person to worry. Also, she could probably intimidate/will the airplane into staying in the sky.

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, wait! Did you see Aalyah answer the phone? That was amazing, that made my day. Tell her and Dominik Papi said 'good night' and that I love them, okay? Okay, I love you, Angie. Bye."

Rey hung up, feeling a little better now that he'd talked to his family.

"Rey-Rey we're all gonna die!" Randy wailed, running over to the smaller wrestler.

"Why are we all dying, now?" Rey questioned. Apparently he did not get any breaks from being _someone_'s father.

"Because not a single one of us is Aryan-race looking enough to get along with any of these creepy hicks!"

(Kane and Big Show were too tall, Triple H was too progressive-looking, HBK and Jericho looked somewhat effeminate today, Jeff was too Gothic, Punk was Straight Edge, Cryme Tyme was black, John Cena acted black, Rey was Hispanic, Randy cold be mistaken as part Latino, and Batista was half Greek, half Filipino.)

Rey tried to process that sentence. "Wait, what creepy people are you talking about? There's no one in this whole airport except the employees running it."

"No! On the road on the way here Jericho says he saw a KKK meeting house!"

Rey leaned around Randy and stared down Jericho. "Chris Jericho, you were asleep when I drove you here. Stop being paranoid."

"See, I told you he was lying!" Cena declared.

"You said he was lying about the KKK being real, you asshole, that's not what he got wrong!" Triple H contradicted.

Everyone was well ont heir way to yet another clusterfuck argument.

"SHUT UP!" Rey yelled.

Nobody made a peep.

"Sorry. All I want to know is where are we all going? Are we staying here for a while? Because it's 6:00 and we all already ate so I can't think of a damn thing to do here," Rey explained.

"Yeah, I guess we'll stay here for like an hour," Randy said.

"All right. Cool. I'm gonna go for a walk or something," Rey said and walked off.

"Later, man," Cena called.

They all waved as Rey strode off, heaving an exhale and looking around for somewhere to escape to. Somewhere to get some peace and quiet. He just felt frustrated. Steaming mad for no particular reason.

But then he remembered that he hadn't worked things out with Dave.

He swore under his breath in Spanish.

He stalked back in the direction he'd come from, remembering that he'd seen Dave leaning up against the wall a little ways away from the pay phone. Nobody said anything about him circling back so quickly.

Rey froze when he got to the spot, finding that Dave had left it.

He cussed a serious blue streak in Spanish, death-marching back down the hallway again to look for Batista.

Once again, nobody said anything. That is, until he was out of earshot.

"What's Rey so pissed about?" Jeff asked.

"He's frustrated with Dave bitching about him all the time. They'd been fighting a lot lately," Shawn Michaels informed.

"Oooh, trouble in paradise," Triple H noted.

"It's not exactly paradise when one of the people in the relationship thinks it's a serious relationship and the other one is totally clueless that Dave feels that way," Shawn reminded.

"Well, Rey's the responsible one. Won't he fix everything?" Jeff asked.

"Rey can't fix everything," Punk said sadly. "That's probably why he's having this problem with Dave. You heard all that stuff Batista shouted at Rey."

"You talking about all that shit about 'I can have my own damn problem that you can't fix, Rey-Rey'?" Cena questioned.

"Yeah," Punk said.

"That was just cold, dawg. I mean…Rey-Rey takes care of all of us," Cena said.

They nodded.

"Well, what if he doesn't want to anymore?" Punk asked, putting forth the question that was in everyone's mind.

They were all quiet for a while.

"I don't want Rey to be mad anymore," Jeff murmured sadly.

"Me neither," Randy sniffed.

"So he's going to find Dave," Shawn said, sighing. "I don't know if he should do that. I don't want him to be alone with Batista right now. There's no telling what he'll do to Rey."

"I'll kick his ass if he ever touches Rey-Rey," Cena asserted.

"Well, I don't know if Rey would ever tell us if Dave hurt him. He keeps telling me he's positive that he's not in any danger," Shawn said, squirming with anxiety.

"But Rey thinks of Dave as a good friend, not as a jealous…." Punk said, his voice trailing off.

"Stalker?" Triple H offered. That didn't fit. Nobody could come up with a name for it.

"He thinks Dave's a nice, good-natured –albeit ginormous– guy. But really Dave's a crazy, resentful, confrontational son of a bitch," Punk illustrated.

"He's…he thinks he knows someone. But that person's someone else entirely," Shawn murmured. "And I'm afraid for him."

But nobody moved.


	7. Chapter 7

**Oh my God, I scared myself. The last line of the previous chapter sounds like a set-up to a murder scene…**_**but what if it is**_**???? Oh, sweet banana pie! **

**KEEP READING!!!! XD!!!**

"I'm not afraid of you."

It was the first thing out of Rey's mouth when he stepped into the room where Dave was. It was halfway down the long main hallway to the right and it looked like it was some sort of conference room. It had a table and a few chairs with metal legs. Two stacks of the same public school issue chairs were to Dave's left. He was next to the only window, which was huge and shaped like a fat rectangle. It had white blinds and the blinds were closed tight. There was a tall, white storage closet. It was a tiny, disgustingly generic room.

Dave snorted.

"Well, isn't that nice for you?"

Batista shifted uncomfortably. Rey saw it.

"Are you afraid of me, Dave?" Rey asked disbelievingly.

"Why should I be afraid of you? You're two-foot six and you've never even broke 200 pounds!"

Rey glared at him. "You know what I'm asking you."

"Ask me a direct fucking question and then I'll know what you're asking me."

Rey bit his tongue. This never worked when they both just argued in circles like this. It wouldn't solve anything.

He let the silence go on for a second so that they could both cool off.

When Rey next spoke he sounded desperate, and his voice was faint.

"Dave, if there's anything…anything at all that you need to tell me, I'll listen to you. You said I don't listen to you, so I will. If there's anything at all that you need to tell me then I'll hear you out. I don't care what it is."

Rey looked Batista directly in the eye, trying so hard to pull an answer out of him. He didn't know if Batista had a crush, an attraction, or was actually in love with him. He still couldn't tell. He just wanted to hear it from him. He didn't want to force Dave to admit about his obsession with the luchador, he just wanted him to come out and say it of his own free will.

There was a long pause.

"Dave…? Do you need to tell me anything?" Rey tried again. His eyes were wet.

"No," Batista said slowly, lying. Lying. Lying. Lying.

"Oh," Rey said quietly. "Um...okay. Okay. Well, I'll just…I'll see you later, I guess…" Rey headed for the door.

If Dave didn't say it, then maybe Shawn was wrong. Maybe this was a joke. And maybe Rey was the punch line. He shouldn't have so easily believed Shawn Michaels. Now he just went and indirectly accused his best friend of being gay for him.

Batista blinked.

Rey looked so confused and so heartbroken.

And Dave saw it. He saw that it was so hard on Rey not to know. The not-knowing was gnawing him up inside and it scared him, and it made him bitter and melancholy and nervous. Rey couldn't live his life not knowing whether Shawn had lied to him about Batista's feelings for him, or whether Batista was lying about them.

And the worst part; the part that woke Dave up. The definition of Rey Mysterio was that he had a bounce in every step. It was energetic and happy when he was, but it was still there even when he was sad; if he was okay. If he would eventually feel better. It was just something that he unconsciously had; this buoyancy that kept him afloat. And Rey was shuffling to the door right now with flat, spiritless steps. He was sinking.

"Rey, wait," Dave said weakly.

Rey looked back at him. He was just about to put his hand on the doorknob. "Yeah?"

"I…I have a confession to make."

Rey turned around, blinking his big, brown eyes.

"I…I have been hurting people backstage. Guys. When you weren't looking."

"Why…?"

"Because they looked at you like you were some worthless faggot, and I couldn't stand that," Batista blurted.

Rey nodded. "Yeah, well, I've been called things before. Behind my back or not."

"And you're okay with that? You're _okay_ with just letting it go? They insulted you as a person! How can that be all hunky dory to you?!"

"I'm _not _okay with that. But I'm over it, Dave. I've been wrestling professionally since I was a kid. With guys way bigger and way older than me. I'm small and short and too young and blah blah blah," Rey sighed. "I tune it out."

"Well, a lot of the guys think you're cute," Batista murmured.

"Yeah. Shawn told me all that yesterday."

Batista flinched. "Did he tell you…?"

"I'd rather hear it from you."

Batista gnawed on his fingernails nervously. When somebody put you on a spot about your deep, dark secret feelings towards them…it was hard to fess up. It was especially hard because Rey was the one putting him on the spot but Rey was also the one he had the feelings towards.

"Well, can you just tune out all the guys scrambling around after you 24/7?"

"I didn't notice that until this weekend!" Rey protested.

"You're lying and you know it," Batista growled.

"Well, I didn't know it was every last wrestler in WWE! How was I supposed to know that?"

"You're being honest with me? You didn't know all the guys had the hots for you until Shawn told you?"

"_Yes_! Why would I lie about that?!"

Batista eyed Rey. Triple H had been right earlier. Rey was a bad liar. And he wasn't lying right now.

Rey rolled his eyes and dropped his arms against his thighs in frustration. "Come on, Dave. Give me a break. What do you want me to say?"

"Say how much you noticed the other guys."

Rey swallowed. "I noticed a few looks every now and then, that's it."

"Starting when?"

Rey shook his head. "You want to hear the long story, or the short one?"

Batista narrowed his eyes. He thought Rey was talking about some long and scandalous history of affairs within the WWE that Rey wouldn't tell him about. "The long one."

He found out that's not what Rey was talking about at all.

"Men have been looking at me like I was on the menu since I was twelve. And that's only as far back as I can remember."

Batista recoiled at that, shocked. He'd never once considered how scary it must have been for Rey when he was younger. He'd been too busy fueling his own jealousy and feeling sorry for himself over the current, full-grown Rey. He'd always thought that Rey could take care of himself. But what if he hadn't been able to when he was a boy? What if something had happened to him?

"Like you said, I look 'cute'," Rey said bitterly, crossing his arms.

Batista didn't know what to say.

"Nobody hurt you, did they?" he asked warily.

Rey shook his head feverishly.

"No. And I don't even…I don't even hate gay people. I don't. Some of Angie's friends are gay guys and they're nice people. Hell, what am I saying…I guess all of my friends are gay guys, too…" Rey muttered.

Batista softened a little.

"Rey, you don't look gay."

Rey looked at him and shook his head. "Whatever."

"No, you don't! Really! I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it!"

"Well, apparently you've said a lot of things to me that you didn't mean."

"Oh, really, like what?" Batista demanded, back on the defensive already.

"Well, Jesus…you-you didn't say things, it's the fact that you didn't say them. You're keeping things from me."

Batista swallowed and glared for a second before looking away. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" Rey screamed. He struggled to keep his voice down, to try to stay calm, but Batista was purposely riling him up and making him forget his train of thought. It was infuriating.

He shook his head. "Forget it. I'm gonna go off with the guys. Just forget I ever tried to talk to you. I can't deal with you, anymore, Dave. I'm trying to give you a chance to talk to me, and you just keep throwing it all in my face. You _are_ upset. There _is_ something you're not telling me."

"How could you possibly know that, Rey? Nothing's bothering me, and I'm not hiding things from you! Stop accusing me!"

"Then why were you starting an argument over Randy rooming with us? Why did you start another one over him sleeping next to me? Why did you chase him up a goddamn flag pole?!" Rey yelled.

"WHY DID YOU TRY TO SLEEP WITH HIM?!" Batista exploded.

Rey had no idea that Batista could cross a room that fast.

He didn't see him move, he just saw Dave leering down at him when he'd got there. And he heard Dave's palm smack the wall just to the side of Rey's head.

Rey didn't break eye contact.

"I already said I'm not afraid of you."

"I _seriously_ doubt that," Batista intoned. He was 6'6'' and Rey was exactly a foot lower than that.

Rey's eyes were on fire. "You seriously believe that I was trying to have some crazy fling with _Randy Orton_?" Rey snorted. "I think your parents explained sex wrong. Two guys sleeping on a _gigantic_ fucking mattress don't constitute gay sex, Dave."

"Why the fuck would you want him to sleep next to you unless you were going to sleep with him!?"

"I have seen _states_ smaller than that mattress! I was just trying to be nice! And why the fuck would I sleep with a guy when I've never slept with a guy before?! And even if I was gay, why would I sleep with Randy with _you_ in the room?! Is your logic at all based in reality?!" Rey demanded.

"SHUT UP!!" Batista shouted. "You're always fucking mocking me, and I've had it!"

"I'm not mocking you! Just tell me how the hell that makes sense that I would sleep with Randy Orton!!" Rey fumed.

Batista glared down at him.

Maybe Rey was completely straight. Because everybody in their right mind knew that Randy Orton looked exactly like an underwear model- especially when he was in his wrestling briefs/ man-panties. God knows he tried to look tougher by getting sleeve tattoos along both his arms, but they didn't succeed in their purpose.

"Why do you always try to take care of the younger guys, Rey?"

The wheels started to turn in Rey's head and he realized that Batista thought he had a thing for the younger guys on the roster and that he wasn't taking them under his wing out of any sort of adult sense of responsibility or fatherly impulses.

"Like hell I'd go after a younger guy! And what? Get arrested for statutory rape?" Rey asked.

"Randy's older than that, Rey."

Rey rolled his eyes. "Come on, he doesn't look like it. That's…that creeps me out. No. If I were gay, I wouldn't be gay for Randy Orton." Rey shuddered.

"Well, you know just because Randy likes you doesn't mean that he's gay, right?" Dave asked carefully.

Rey blinked at him, confused. "Seriously? You think the whole male half of the roster is straight even though they're after _me_?"

"I didn't say that. I think that most of the guys are bi."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Maria, Madre de dios…" he muttered.

Jesus Christ, it was getting difficult to keep up with all this new information.

"You think I turned everyone gay just for me?"

Batista shrugged. "In some cases, yeah."

Rey sighed.

This was getting ridiculous.

"I am such a…goddamnit, Finley was right. I'm a fucking 'faggot magnet'."

"Don't call me a fag, Rey," Batista blurted, offended.

Rey started.

Batista blushed and then paled intensely, and backed off, retreating to the other side of the room and began pacing anxiously.

Rey had finally gotten him to say it.

"You-you mean you do like me?" Rey asked trying to make sure he'd heard correctly.

"You already knew that. Why did you want to hear me say it? You need some sort of evidence that I'm after you so you can get a restraining order or something?" Batista accused.

"No! I just wanted to know whether or not Shawn was lying! Do you have any idea how crazy that guy is? He's got _Undertaker and Triple H_ eating out of the palm of his hand! How the hell do you even begin to pull that off? He's crazy like a fox! He could have been tricking me too, I wasn't sure! I had to know from you!" Rey explained.

He couldn't help but being a little relieved. He finally knew the truth. Shawn hadn't been lying! That meant that Rey wasn't going crazy for suspecting that Dave liked him!

_I'm not crazy! _The voice in Rey's head cheered.

He tried to stifle the euphoria but there was no helping it. All this fucking worrying and hesitancy hadn't been misdirected! He was right! He was probably going to be utterly confused about his relationship with Dave for weeks after this, but he was right, goddamnit!

"I thought you knew I liked you! Why do you have to get me to say it?" Batista demanded.

"And you can wipe that smile off your face," he added venomously.

The happy sound effects in Rey's head switched to the noises of a car screeching to a halt only to smash into another one with a massive clinking and clunking of shredding metal. While that car accident was going on in his head, Rey swallowed his smile.

_He is very clearly in love with you._ Rey's conscience told him.

_Stop telling me things I already know._ Rey thought back. _And wait a second; you don't even know for sure how in love with you he is! It could still be just a crush!_

_Okay, fine, you're right…_his conscience admitted disappointedly. His conscience loved to scare him and make things seem worse than they actually were.

_I mean, for God's sake, I fell in'love' with a puppy one time! That doesn't mean I would go off and marry that dog! _

_OKAY! I GET IT!!_ his conscience surrendered.

"Do you- do you like me, like Shawn said C.M. Punk likes me? As a friend? Or as a crush, like Kane, or…or do you love me?" Rey said, trying his best not to mince words.

"STOP FUCKING WITH ME! I LOVE YOU! YOU KNOW THAT!" Batista shouted.

Rey opened his mouth to speak and a ghost of a voice floated out. "Oh."

Batista stared at him, shaken. "What do you mean, 'oh'?"

Rey looked very pale. "I…I _didn't_…I don't…know that…" Rey managed to get out.

"_What_?" Batista said hoarsely.

There was a long pause. They could have heard a pin drop all the way down the hall from that room it was so quiet.

"Are you serious? You're not pulling my leg? You didn't know…?"

Rey shook his head slowly, like he was in a trance. "No, I didn't…"

"All this time…? You had no idea I liked you this whole time?"

"No…" Rey said weakly.

Batista looked like he'd just found out a bomb had been dropped on his house.

"You're kidding," Batista finally said with a tinge of bitterness.

"I don't blame you for being angry with me. I know it's my fault," Rey began sadly.

"_What_?!"

"I'm sorry. It's…it's my fault that you ever liked me as anything more than a friend," Rey started to explain, but Batista cut him off.

"That's exactly your problem, Rey, you think that everything's always about you. All this crap from all the guys has gotten to your head, finally."

Rey tried to ignore the sting he felt from that remark. "I-I _know_ it was my fault. I _know_. I think you remember it, too, I swear to you, Dave, I didn't mean anything by it…I didn't…" Rey's eyes were fogging up.

That memory, that stupid, stupid, terrible memory…

He hadn't cried this much in so few days since…in years. He hadn't cried this often in years.

"I-I don't want to talk about it, don't make me say it, you know what day I'm talking about!" Rey said, choking on sobs that he was desperately holding back.

"I thought it was mutual…I thought you liked me just as much as I liked you.

And just recently, I thought you were just messing with my head…"

"I wasn't…" Rey protested. "I wouldn't. I wouldn't do that to you."

"I don't know what 'day' you're talking about. You'll just have to spell it out for me," Batista said, frustrated. He was lying again.

"WHEN EDDIE DIED!" Rey screamed. Tears leaked out from him. They were beyond his control now. "When Eddie died…the day after he died, when we all heard he'd had a heart attack…" Rey cried. "I heard, and I went numb at first, and then, I…I managed to get to work, and Angie knew I was upset, but I had to go. We both knew I had to go, and I didn't get a chance to get all of the pain off my chest before I had to leave…so when I showed up at the memorial episode I just…I was…I was like a robot or something, I don't even remember the video, or anything, I just know that Shawn was standing next to me…"

Batista's eyes widened and his expression went blank with shock and understanding. It all came flashing back to him rapid-fire. It all came crashing down around him because of that one memory.

"And after the tribute video and everything went out…I…I…" Rey couldn't finish.

"I remember," Batista said quietly.

Shawn Michaels had led a stunned and breathless Rey Mysterio backstage to the locker room where many of the guys were also in tears over the unexpected and untimely death of Eddie Guerrero. Nobody had known what to say to Rey. Rey had been best friends with Eddie on screen and off for years.

John Cena patted his shoulder gently as he walked out and many of the others followed suit and decided to leave Rey alone with Shawn and Batista, who was at the other end of the room. When everyone else had left, Rey had just stood there, eyes unblinking and completely devoid of thought.

The bounce in Rey's steps had left for days, if not weeks after Eddie's death, and tonight they were so solid and grounded that Rey didn't resemble himself. Rey was a speedy, good-spirited, hyperactive, gymnastic, god of high-flying. Eddie's death had turned him mortal. And although he could still wrestle with his entire prowess by switching off his emotions or going on autopilot, he wasn't aware of the change in how he carried himself. The real Rey; the happy Rey floated. He didn't walk, he floated. This Rey, this heartbroken Rey Mysterio did walk. Like any other mortal who couldn't fly.

His wings were clipped.

Shawn had looked at him to make sure he wouldn't faint or something and before anyone knew what was happening; Rey tottered all the way across the room, dead silent and bumped into Batista.

Batista looked down to find Rey's face buried in his torso, quiet tears streaming down his mask and face.

Batista hadn't known what to say, so he didn't say anything. He wrapped his arms around Rey's shoulders and tried to comfort him, but there was nothing that could be done. So he just held him there for a while.

And a terrible, amazing, beautiful thing had happened. Rey had stretched up his arms and hugged onto Dave's back, his gloved hands gently clutching tight against Batista's body just as some of his tears fell down Batista's bare skin.

Batista remembered looking up to see Shawn's face; completely flabbergasted and riddled with melancholy. Shawn had smiled sadly, but gratefully, at Batista and a tear had trailed down his cheek.

"I remember telling you before then that I only ever cried in front of Angie…" Rey gasped. "That's why I know it was my fault that you took it that way… you thought I was crying in front of you because I loved you…I'm so sorry, Dave, I'm so sorry…"

Batista just looked at him, so upset he couldn't speak. He took one look at Rey, his beautiful skin streaked with tears, begging for forgiveness and he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to forgive. So he walked out of the room without a single word.

"I'm so sorry…" Rey whispered.

Rey collapsed back against the wall and crumpled into a pile, holding his knees as he buried his face and sobbed uncontrollably into them.

He felt the material of his jeans slowly soak up with wetness and for some reason that just made him cry harder.


	8. Chapter 8

**OH MY GOD I am so sorry if I made anybody cry uncontrollably at that last part, but you're not alone, people, the futo was crying too, as she wrote it. OH, the sadness. I had to do it, I'm so sorry, but I had to tie it back to Eddie. That was the only way it made any sense to me. **

**Eddie, you're stealing God's cars in heaven now, and we all know it. We miss you down here, esse. You and Rey were the best things since sliced bread. **

Futo while she was typing the past chapter: T_T

Everyone panicked the moment that they saw Batista come walking back out of the hallway alone- Rey was nowhere to be seen.

"OH MY GOD, WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!" Triple H screamed and Cena took off like a bulldozer going ninety miles an hour and rammed Batista up against the back wall. Cena backed up and Batista toppled over onto his knees, stunned. Cena wasn't usually this fast. Or this strong. Batista had the unfortunate opportunity to learn through experience that John Cena was most dangerous when protecting someone else. And right now that someone was his favorite wrestler in the whole world.

Batista tackled Cena at the stomach and slammed him onto the floor, punching him while Cena tried to guard his face. He didn't put up his fists in time to prevent Batista from smashing into his nose, causing it to bleed.

While Cena was winded, Kane rushed over and in his rage, Batista kneed him hard in the groin. Needless to say, Kane was down for the count.

Cryme Tyme tried to double team him and Batista tripped JTG, who crash-landed onto his chin, his teeth knocking together with a loud clack. While he was surprised by his friend's plight, the Animal head butted Shad in the forehead.

Both Randy Orton and Chris Jericho rush at Batista, trying to hold him. Jericho knocked his legs out from under him and Randy put Dave in a headlock from behind. Batista was so angry it didn't matter if a herd of elephants tried to stampede all over him; he would crush anything in his path.

He kicked Jericho in the throat and elbowed Orton until the young man's gut felt like there were holes in it.

Big Show tried to sneak up behind him Dave and for that, he Dave elbowed him in the temples and slammed his head into his knee.

Finally, Cena managed to pin Batista with a chokehold, his nose bloody and his eyes flashing with determination.

Kane and Big Show followed suit, holding back Batista's arms and lifting him up, pinning him to the concrete wall.

Batista glared down at Cena, who had his giant hand at the Animal's throat.

"John! Wait!" Shawn shouted and raced over with the others.

"Put him down, he can't tell us where Rey is if you knock him out!"

"Yeah, man!" Jeff agreed nervously.

Cena death glared Batista eye to eye and said very clearly, "Rey-Rey would smack the shit out of me if he knew I'd touched you- if he's still alive, that is. Rey-Rey's the only reason why you're not dead, motherfucker, you got that?"

Batista coughed as Cena released him.

"Fuck you, man, I didn't hurt him."

"Really?" Shawn demanded. "Where is he?"

"Down the hall, on the left in a conference room."

"If he even has a scratch on him, I will let these monsters tear you apart," Shawn threatened.

Batista didn't answer that.

HBK took off down the hall with Jeff Hardy and C.M. Punk in tow.

Triple H and the other guys stayed to keep an eye on Batista and knock him senseless if he ever managed to escape from Kane, Big Show and John Cena.

Shawn tightened his hands into fists; he was so afraid that something had happened to Rey.

But when they got close to the room, they heard sounds.

"That sounds like Rey…" C.M. Punk whispered to Shawn.

"He's crying…" Jeff said loudly and the other two both shushed him.

Jeff made like he was going to rush into the room, but Shawn held him back.

"That's not the kind of crying that you would want other people to hear. It's the 'damn, I'm glad nobody's here to see me look like a fucking mess' crying," Punk said.

Shawn nodded.

They gave Rey a little while to calm down, and it was completely agonizing for them to listen to him sob for two minutes solid, but the noises lessened every passing second and finally it was evident that he'd stopped crying altogether.

Shawn knocked on the door.

"Rey…?"

"I-I'm in here…" Rey called, hurriedly wiping his face. He would just pretend that his jeans were supposed to be dark on the thighs. Goddamn, they were soaked with saltwater, he'd been crying so hard.

"Rey, you okay, buddy?" Shawn asked, as they all walked in, trying not to burst through, even though that's what they wanted to do.

They saw him immediately, sitting there in the dark. On the floor. Alone.

Rey nodded quietly.

Shawn knelt down in front of him and gave him a once-over. He didn't appear to have any physical damage from his encounter, but Shawn couldn't be sure in this poor lighting.

HBK reached out carefully and held Rey's chin in his fingers, examining the younger man's face for injuries. Rey didn't meet his eyes. He was ashamed to be found in this condition at his age. His cheeks were tear-stained and his eyes were very red. But Shawn couldn't tell if there were any marks on him.

"Turn the lights on, Jeff," Shawn ordered.

"Don't turn the lights on," Rey contradicted, smacking Shawn's hand away.

Jeff froze, his arm still outstretched towards the light switch.

Rey turned back to Shawn. "I'm not a dog. Stop inspecting me like I've been in a fight."

"Were you?"

"A verbal one, yeah."

Shawn sighed. "Rey…"

"Stop giving me that 'take the kids and run' look! I'm not hurt! He didn't touch me!"

Punk blew air threw his lips with a sort of "Pffft," laughing sound.

They all looked at him.

"Sorry, Rey, sorry," Punk chuckled. "'Take the kids and run'…?"

Rey smiled faintly. "Okay, yeah…I went a little overboard with that, yeah…"

Shawn grinned. Rey seemed lighter than he must have been while he was sobbing earlier. "You feeling better now?"

Rey sighed. "I don't know…Dave said he's in love with me…"

C.M. Punk's big, cute eyes expanded to the size of dinner plates.

Jeff Hardy started twirling his ponytail manically.

"_Really_?!" they both said at the same time like a pair of high school girls reacting to drama.

They weren't really that surprised that Dave was in love with Rey  that was far from a revelation  they were just shocked that Rey had gotten Dave to _confess_ that he was in love with him.

"Yeah…" Rey said, a faraway look in his eyes, like he might just fade away. "Is there anything else I don't know about people? Is Angie secretly a drug dealer or something? I mean, really. _Really_, you could go ahead and tell me anything right now. Any secret at all. I doubt it'll shock me anymore than my best friend being secretly in love with me for like…eternity, apparently…"

He exhaled through his nose in a forlorn sort of way.

"It's okay that you were crying, Rey, I cried last weekend," Jeff said, biting his thumb nail and looking similar to an innocent little kid sucking his thumb.

Punk bit his upper lip and stuck out his pierced lower one the way he always did when he was exasperated after losing a wrestling match. Right now he was doing it because he was perplexed as hell.

"Why were you crying?" Rey asked hesitantly.

"I got a paper cut. So you're way tougher than me, if that makes you feel any better," Jeff deadpanned in a spacey voice.

They held back their laughter.

Shawn lost it first and erupted into a breathless laugh while Punk chuckled uncontrollably and Rey laughed so hard his sides started hurting.

"You cried about a _paper cut_, Jeff?" Rey asked, gasping for air. "Dios mio, oh, Jesus…oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh at you, that was just…oh, man…"

Jeff stared at them blankly and Punk patted his head.  
"You are so funny; there aren't even any words for it…" Punk managed to get out.

Punk stretched out a hand to help Rey up, and Rey took it.

The luchador ruffled Jeff's hair and said, "You're innocent, I'll give you that."

Jeff smiled broadly at receiving Rey's attention.

Rey half-hugged him, which Jeff returned happily.

"Oh, God, that was funny…I needed that," Rey admitted as they went out the door.

"The laugh or the cry?" Shawn asked.

"Both, I think."

As they walked down the hallway, Rey held up Jeff's hands to the fluorescent light.

"What are you looking for?" Jeff asked.

"I think your paper cut healed over," Rey said, winking.

Punk giggled.

"Did it, now? Get the man a lollipop for being such a good patient, Doctor Rey!" Shawn joked.

"You know, I think 'Doctor Mysterio' sounds like the scariest ring name I have ever heard…" Rey said fancifully.

It was true. It sounded like a luchador who came to the ring in a bright all-silver costume with something like giant dentist's tools who cackled insanely and kidnapped and tortured all the 'faces' in WWE one by one, only to be foiled by their friends, and somehow the fans.

Rey screeched to a halt when they came out of the hallway.

"Oh my God…" Rey murmured: flushing in fear at the sight of Batista pinned to the wall.

And at the carnage piled around the whole room. All the guys that had stayed were limping, coughing, or bleeding.

Rey was shocked. "Who-? Who was fighting…?"

Randy rubbed his damaged stomach and pointed at Batista. So did the other injured parties.

Rey couldn't believe it. After all he'd said, after all of the times he'd come to Batista's defense and said he wasn't violent; this is how he returned the favor.

The cruiserweight swallowed angrily.

"Put him down!" Rey whispered fiercely.

Big Show and Kane obeyed, but kept their grips on him.

"Rey-Rey!" a bloody-nosed Cena called out joyfully and dashed over to the smaller man, picking him up in his arms.

"I'm fine! I'm fine! Now, put me down!" Rey yelped patting John's back anxiously.

Cena set him back on his feet, relieved.

"Why is your nose bleeding?" Rey asked him.

Cena shrugged and sniffed. "Aw, it's no biggie. I had it under control, Rey-Rey."

"Answer me. Did Dave hurt you?"

"Yeah. It's okay though, 'cause I hit him back."

Rey looked out at all the others and surveyed the damage again.

"Dave, did you do all of this?"

Batista wouldn't answer Rey. This disheartened the cruiserweight more than anything.

Rey stared down the two tall wrestlers still gripping Batista's arms.

"Let him go."

They loosened their fingers and Batista wrenched his arm away from them and sent extra poisonous glares in their direction. He started to storm off, picking up his duffel bag along the way.

"Dave, wait!" Rey shouted, trying to run after him, but Cena and Shawn Michaels held him back; one in front, blocking him and the other, gripping his shoulders from behind.

"Let me go! I have to talk to him!" Rey yelled and squirmed and jerked, but he felt weighted down, and he didn't have his usual strength to help him break their holds. He was weak with sadness and confusion.

"DAVE!" Rey screamed.

Batista was almost to the front door. Just yards away from Rey.

He paused and for a second Rey thought he might turn around and come back. But Dave Batista just silently shook his head and walked out the door.

"He didn't- he didn't even look at me…" Rey said quietly, disbelievingly. "He didn't even turn back…"

"Rey, you can't go after him," Shawn said bracingly.

"Why? Did Batista hurt Rey-Rey?" Cena demanded, talking to Shawn Michaels over Rey's head. Rey hated when people did that to him.

"I'm right here! Just ask me!" Rey yelled furiously, gaining some of his strength back and ripping away from the two men.

"Just ask me!" he repeated, when all they did was stare at him.

"He didn't hit you or anything, did he Rey-Rey?" Cena asked; an unusual gentleness in his voice.

Rey was surprised by it. Was the effect he had on the guys so great that they'd ceased to be self-centered and now spent all of their time concerned about him?

"No, John. He didn't."

"Did he slap you or kick you or beat you or-"

Rey shook his head firmly. "No, no, _no_! Why would he do that?"

Cena shrugged.

Rey looked up at the ceiling in exasperated fury and then back to the floor before going to pick up his bag. He'd left it where they'd all discovered earlier that their cell phones weren't working.

Everyone followed him at a respectful distance.

"Did he say nasty things to you? 'Cause words can hurt too, dawg, I mean, verbal abuse is a serious problem."

Rey was about to tell John Cena he was an idiot, but then he stopped himself. He considered the question for a second.

"Well, he…he says things to me that I don't think he means. Because his eyes look hurt when he says them. But his words cut sometimes. That's why I don't think he'd ever bother physically hurting me. He can push me away with words just as well."

"What did he tell you in there?" Shawn prodded gently.

Rey shook his head. "It's my fault. I provoked him. I did most of the talking. I wanted him to come out and tell me if he loved me. And that bothered him for some reason. He didn't like being called out without warning, I guess."

"But what did he say to you that hurt you, Rey?"

"Something about how all the attention I get from you guys is going to my head," Rey confessed.

They all frowned at that. They didn't like the sound of Batista's implications.

"But you didn't even know about all of us fighting over you until recently!" Shawn protested.

"I know," Rey said, sighing. "I told him I didn't know about it. I told him. I just don't think he believes me."

"Why do you think he stormed off like that?" Jeff asked suddenly.

"I-I told him that I didn't know he liked me. After I finally got him to say it."

"He said, 'I love you'? He said the magic words? Literally? Just like that?" Shawn pressed.

"Yes."

Cena whistled. "Goddamn, Rey-Rey. No wonder he looks pissed. He said 'I love you' and you said, 'I didn't know'?"

"Basically, yeah," Rey answered quietly. "But it's the truth. I know it sounds…cruel, I guess, but it's true. I didn't know until Shawn told me."

"But the signs were there," Randy put in.

"I didn't know I was even supposed to be _looking_ for signs!" Rey exclaimed. "I'm straight! I'm married, and I have kids! Jesus, why did everybody expect me to know to look for signs?!"

They all thought about that for a second.

"I don't know," Randy admitted, shrugging.

"We thought you were aware of how cute you are," Shawn put in. "And little did we know: you are not manipulating your dark power. You just naturally get people to pay attention and do your bidding without necessarily meaning to."

Rey buried his face in his palms and shook his head, muttering mixed prayers and obscenities in Espanol.

"Well, you may be mad at us for questioning you like some lady who's in an abusive marriage or some shit like that, but damn, Rey-Rey, you really do act like that," Cena remarked.

Rey opened his mouth to protest and remembered one time when he'd watched TV with Angie and it was an Oprah show or something about abusive relationships. They were usually women being abused by their husbands or boyfriends. And there were several signs to look for in people that are being abused.

Rey hated those guys with a passion. But he connected the dots and queasily recognized that he was taking the role of a victim and Dave would become the abuser if he wasn't very careful with how he handled Dave's confession.

Never in his life had he once considered being on the receiving end of abuse from someone that he wasn't even married to. And who was another man. And his friend.

Rey ended up saying, "I…I don't mean to act like that. He's not abusing me. It's just that I feel like I'm the only one who tries to listen to him. You guys have stopped trying."

They all dropped their eyes, ashamed.

"And I…I know that there's no excuse for a lot of the things he does, but Dave's my friend, and I have to defend him. No, I-I want to defend him. I want to help him. But I don't think I can. I think I'm the reason why he's so screwed up now."

"Well, Rey, if you made him this way – into a crazed homophobic homosexual homicidal mess – then maybe you can also unmake him," Shawn offered.

That was probably true.

It seemed like Dave didn't hear a single voice in the crowd or watch a single face in the room except Rey's.

"We could all try to be nicer to him, Rey," Punk offered.

Rey smiled weakly. "I'd like that."

He tried to meet everyone's eyes, but he was embarrassed and he couldn't always bring himself to. They all saw that his eyes were red from crying and they decided not to mention that they noticed.

"I'm so sorry that he hurt you guys. I should have…I should have been here to stop him. I take responsibility for that."

He heaved a long sigh. Then he thought to look at his watch because it was so dark outside.

"It's 7:15. We should go find the closest hotel we can."

"Rey, you can't," Punk said quietly.

Startled, Rey stared up at him. "What?"

"You can't take responsibility for Batista's actions."

"But I caused them, I-"

Cena shook his head. "Rey-Rey, Batista was the one who hit us, not you. You can't apologize for him."

Rey dropped his eyes, devastated.

_You are such a victim. Take the kids and run is right, you are shaping up to be a damn good punching bag, penedejo. _

He rallied himself one last time. Got his logic together to explain Dave's actions the best he could to the others. But his heart wasn't in it as much anymore. He felt betrayed. He felt lost. He felt wrong and naïve and weak.

"I…hypothetically, if I were in Dave's position, if I loved a friend the same gender as me secretly for so long, without bothering to fucking _tell him_," Rey said, clenching his fists at that part. "Then I would be upset too if that friend told me he didn't love me back just when he'd cornered me in a room in a crappy airport in some godforsaken town. I would be angry. I would be sad, and I would be confused. I can't…I can't fault him entirely. I just can't. I know that he's hurt. And I know that I'm…I'm not reacting correctly. I'm probably just enabling his rage."

"You're doing the best you can, Rey," Randy assured him. "That's all you can do. We just don't want you to blame yourself for Dave's problems."

Rey nodded glumly.

"But you're not a victim," Punk said firmly. "You're not."

Rey seemed encouraged by that. Punk always did know how to read him.

He nodded meekly as an answer and started to walk out.

They all headed out the door.

"Why do you guys think Dave would hit me? Why do you keep asking me that?" Rey asked curiously.

"Because he's a crazy bitch, that's why," Jeff declared matter-of-factly.

Rey snorted. "Maybe he is. But he's mine if he's anybody's."

All the guys exchanged glances. _What_…? Was Rey still straight…?

"I mean he's my _friend_," Rey explained exasperatedly when he saw all their confused looks.

"Oh, yeah."

"Yeah, of course, Rey."

_Damn it, you turned all of us gay and not a single one of us can turn you!_ they all thought to themselves.

"But you know he is _your_ bitch, right? I mean, God knows none of us can keep him in line like you do," Cena pointed out.

Rey laughed.

But they all noticed his heart didn't come out into his laugh like it usually did.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

**Sorry I took eleven days to post this chapter here, but it was well worth it. I edited the bejesus out of it and now I love it. ;) I hope you guys will, too, please review this chapter!!!! PS I was busy working on my second Rey-Rey fanfic while I wasn't updating this one….I think you'll love it. Check it out when I get it up, it'll be called "Afraid of the Dark" **

Unfortunately the closest hotel to the airport was a horrific mess. It was a motel, actually, and it looked like it was seventy-five years old. It was wooden and gray and the paint was chipped and the desk guy looked like the old man with the one huge eye from Telltale Heart.

Rey's eyes lit up discreetly when he saw the dense woods behind the motel. He didn't say anything about them.

Shawn Michaels had to do all the talking and Rey, Cryme Tyme and Batista all hid their faces in their hoodies and snuck down the hallway while he was distracting the man. This was because they'd spotted a bunch of proudly displayed Ku Klux Klan ceramic figurines on a shelf behind the front desk.

The rooms were moth-eaten and probably haunted and the bathrooms were moldy and green and crawling with wildlife. The walls had gaping holes in them to the point where three grown men could stand side to side and just "yellow brick road" skip out of a single wall hole together. As for the roof…it was there in some places. Occasionally. The floor tiles were slowly disintegrating back into dirt and had completely succeeded in some spots. It was hard to tell whether the motel was the filthiest place in the entire world or just a forest animal's idea of what a building should look like.

Rey roomed with Shawn because they'd all decided that one white guy needed to be watching one of the Hispanic or black guy's backs. Plus, Shawn wanted to watch Rey and make sure that he didn't try to sneak out and find Dave.

Rey was deep in thought as he changed into his sky blue bunny pajamas for the night. He was sick and tired of them automatically assuming he was a victim of abuse. They never once worried about Dave's problems or how to solve them, they just wrote him off as a violent sociopath. And the more Rey thought about it, the more he didn't want to write himself off as just a mere victim. Rey kept trying to find solid proof that he was in danger, but as many times as he wracked his brain, he couldn't ever imagine Dave hurting him. He had no incentive to and every incentive not to.

There was no door to the bathroom, so Shawn watched him curiously. Rey was a bit young for his taste; Shawn preferred guys around his own age so that he could ramble on and on to them about his life and they would be able to relate at least a little.

Shawn was at the age where a reference to a Michael Jackson (when he was in his prime) song might call up memories of when he was just getting into his twenties; Rey was at the age where the same reference might remind him of late in his childhood.

There was just half a generation in between the two of them, but that was still too far apart for Shawn's taste.

Still, Shawn had to admit, there was something undeniably beautiful about Rey.

All the wrestlers were somewhat vain or at least self conscious because their careers were spent in the spotlight. Many of them were obsessive about making sure they had a tan. Rey was lucky enough to have naturally gorgeous skin that never required maintenance and would always look exactly right no matter what kind of lights they put on him. Its tone was unspeakably perfect but could best be described as a toasted caramel color.

Rey had a knack for slowly covering his body in immaculate, well-designed tattoos. He must have had an astounding amount of patience and a high pain tolerance because many of the tattoos were intricate and expansive. The one coating the majority of his back was the largest and it was also the one most visible to Shawn at the moment. It was a skeletal outline tracing the length of Rey's spine and stretching out across the width of his back in sharp bony curves and layers of shading. In a certain light it looked like the black framework for an angel's wings. Nobody would be surprised if Rey did turn out to be a fallen angel, anyway.

Rey had decent legs for his height and a few noticeable scars below his left kneecap from the surgeries he'd had on it.

His hands looked soft but very capable and every once in a while he gesticulated with them while he talked. They seemed to be animated into whatever direction the sparks in his beautiful eyes flew.

His arms were athletically muscular; not nearly as bulky or as powerful as some of the other guys' but absolutely fatal the way he utilized them in his acrobatics. The names of his first two children on the inside on either bicep hinted at his innate sweetness. Rey tended to feel love for things very strongly but was reluctant to hate things as much or as often.

There was an exotic quality to his torso not just because of his skin color, but because of his tattoos. The enormous word "Mexican" tattooed across his stomach was his boldest one, but he was unashamed of it in a very down-to-earth way. He adored his heritage but wasn't prone to lecturing about it. If anyone was ever scared of Rey because of that tattoo, then when they heard his soft-spoken, sonorous voice it would eliminate their expectations of who he was as a person. Rey breathed from his stomach and it would flare out if he couldn't catch his breath and it would tremble slightly when he was panting.

He had a beautifully inked rosary encircling his collarbone and trailing down his chest. His pectoral muscles could be said to be his crowning glory; they were always, always toned to an unearthly tightness. They looked effortless, and frankly, very sexy. The rosary was a loud clue that Rey was, like many Latinos, Catholic and unapologetically devout. He was very firm about his faith and would quietly recommend religion to anyone who seemed like they needed guidance in their lives, but he wasn't a fan of brainwashing or extremism. He generally believed in the good in people and knew that some religious ideals were too hardcore to practice in modern everyday living. He would say that basic kindness could solve a problem as well as any prayer could.

The natural rhythm of his body indicated a deep-seated calmness and a kind of clarity, or purity that most people lost in their teenage years. He was always entirely one emotion at a time; when he was happy and interested and intrigued by things, he looked bouncier and stronger and couldn't stop smiling.

When he was sad, a kind of wilt came to him that affected everyone around him. Seeing Rey in a sad mood was a lot like seeing rain. It dulled the spirits of anyone who saw it. He was incredibly quiet when he was upset and that always jolted people; they never would have noticed just how talkative Rey was unless they had seen him happy and then seen him sad. His words could go a mile a minute in both English and Spanish and his enthusiasm was contagious to the point where it was an epidemic. But then suddenly when he wasn't feeling well physically or otherwise one could realize how much silence there could be for Rey to fill up. And one would wish to hear his voice in quicker intervals again. His friends were so used to his near-constant speech when he was in the room that they would practically go into withdrawals when he was depressed. They would go crazy waiting to hear his next utterance and become heartbroken themselves that they were fewer and farther between.

As for now, it looked like rain. Rey's mouth stayed in a simple, plain line and his face became inanimate. His eyes turned listless and felt darker to behold than their already deep brown color.

Something about the way he held himself when he was depressed conveyed that he became lost in deep thought. Lost inside his mind, and perhaps conquered by his own passion at times. Rey was very thoughtful, but by all means he was ruled by his heart. What he felt he should do he would do.

Rey sighed and his belly rose and fell with the motion, and his eyes stayed downcast as he stepped into the pajamas. Shawn lamented the fact that Rey had been wearing plain white boxers and not something tighter so that he could fantasize properly. He also mourned seeing Rey's beautiful upper half disappear under the soft cotton material.

"Jesus Christ, stop undressing me with your eyes! What's gotten into you?" Rey yelled, hurriedly zipping up his footie pajamas.

He glared at Shawn.

Shawn shrugged. "Just checking to see that a certain someone didn't leave any marks."

That was half true. Shawn did examine practically every inch of Rey and didn't see a single scratch or bruise. But he gave every inch a second glance for his own enjoyment.

Rey's visage darkened angrily. He'd had it. "I can take care of myself. I don't appreciate all of you guys treating me like I'm some weak, useless little-"

"Bunny rabbit?" Shawn offered, looking at the cute animals on Rey's pajamas.

"Do not. Go there."

"Whatever you say, Peter Cottontail."

Shawn never knew what hit him.

Before he could blink, Rey had him locked in a chokehold, Shawn's throat positioned precariously in between the crook of Rey's arm as he held that wrist tight with his opposite hand and pulled up sharply against Shawn.

"Say uncle," Rey said icily.

Michaels' neck was hurting, and he couldn't break Rey's hold on him. He patted Rey's arm frantically. Rey released his grip.

HBK coughed exaggeratedly for a minute. "Jesus, Rey, you nearly killed me…"

"That was the idea."

When Shawn caught his breath he shook his head at Rey. "You can't tell me that everyone lets you get away with wearing that stuff."

"Yes, as a matter of fact they do, unless they want to get their asses kicked."

Shawn sighed. "You know by 'get away with wearing' I mean I can't believe nobody's tried to pop your cherry when they saw you in those."

Some people never learn.

Shawn barely heard Rey's response to that through his ringing ears after the luchador smacked him upside the head.

"Well, maybe they're not all sick fucks like you are."

Shawn chuckled through his pain. "I seriously doubt that."

Rey flinched at the sound of those words.

"_I already said I'm not afraid of you."_

"_I seriously doubt that."_

He didn't speak for a moment.

"Rey? What's wrong?"

Rey bit his lip.

"Hey, man, hey…" Shawn got up and placed a firm hand on Rey's shoulder. "You know I was just teasing you. You do look really cute in those, you know. But it's impossible to have dirty thoughts at the sight of you in those pajamas. You look so innocent; the worst thing that anybody could ever think about doing to you is hugging you."

Rey shook his head. "I'm not innocent."

Shawn blinked. Rey didn't sound like himself just then. He sounded lost. His usual response was to be calm, or give a sly remark, or to roll his eyes, or to tackle Shawn like he had seconds ago. His tone just now was so final and dark that it was scary.

_Batista had better get his act together soon or he'll totally tear Rey apart from the inside out._

"Rey?" Shawn shook the younger man's shoulder. "Come on, talk to me."

"I only ever roomed with Dave. And Dave never said anything to me about these," Rey said quietly, squeezing the thighs of his pajamas. "I'm sure he thought the same things you do when you look at me."

(Rey certainly had a lot of patience because he had definitely noticed Shawn eyeballing him like a piece of sexy Latino meat.)

"I've been doing everything wrong," he continued. "I'm sure every last thing I did was just leading him on. Causing him to believe that I loved him."

"None of us ever thought you were sending him romantic signals. We all knew you just wanted to be friends. Dave was the only one who interpreted your actions that way."

Rey protested, "But it's partly my fault. If I had acted differently, then he-"

"Listen to me Rey. It doesn't matter what you did. He would have seen it as you coming on to him or you teasing him no matter what it was."

Rey stared at Shawn.

"He saw what he wanted to see," Shawn insisted.

There was a pause.

"But I'm not innocent, am I?" Rey asked honestly, raising his eyes to Shawn.

Rey knew that Batista once saw him as innocent. But everything Batista saw now was warped and untrue. So Rey doubted everything Batista ever said or believed. So Rey doubted his own innocence.

He couldn't help but believe that it was partly his fault that Batista liked him.

Rey had irises the color of melted dark chocolate; rich, and with a biting sweetness.

The thing that scared people about Rey's eyes was how he never seemed to be aware of how penetrating they were.

Shawn smoothed over Rey's shoulders.

"One of the things that Batista's right to think about you, Rey, is that you are a very kind person. You're right to think you're not completely, childishly innocent. Because you're not. You're not naïve. Maybe a little dense and a little lacking in gaydar, but you're not stupid." Shawn said and smiled warmly.

Rey looked at him.

_And the other thing he's right about is that you are handsome. _But for once in his life, Shawn spared Rey that little dig.

"You don't think I'm a bad person for driving Dave crazy?"

"Dave drove himself crazy."

Rey nodded after a moment.

"Could we…could we talk about something else?" he requested.

"Sure."

Michaels thought for a minute. What was relevant but sounded a bit more lighthearted? They'd started off talking about clothes, so…

"You know, Rey, I could pretty much guarantee you that if you loved cross dressers then the whole roster would raid Victoria's Secret and wear it for you at work."

Rey stared at him.

Shawn crossed his fingers that the sudden change of subject had totally thrown Rey's train of thought off of matters dealing with Dave Batista.

"I think you're talking about yourself. Because I don't have the tiniest speck of interest in cross-dressing or watching any of the guys' fat asses squeeze into dresses. That is literally the most wrong mental image I have ever seen. So thank you for that, Shawn. Really."

Rey had definitely gotten his mind off of Batista and was now utterly stunned by HBK's kinkiness.

Shawn shrugged. "I don't know; you should try wearing a skirt."

"Why? Have you worn a skirt?" Rey asked.

"Not yet. I've worn skorts, though. And a kilt."

"A skort? Those things that are like…half skirt and half shorts? What were you doing, playing tennis against Anna Kournikova?"

Shawn beamed. "I mowed the lawn in them."

Rey shook his head. "No, that's weird, but it doesn't count as cross-dressing. Nobody's knows what gender is supposed to wear skorts for sure. And kilts don't count. Roddy Piper wore a kilt. That Braveheart guy in Braveheart wore a kilt. That's men's wear as far as I'm concerned."

"Mel Gibson?" Shawn offered quizzically.

"I _know_ it was Mel Gibson, I'm just trying to remember what his character was called."

"Nobody remembers that. Don't worry about it," Shawn said dismissively.

"Anyway," Rey continued. "The point is, don't tell other men to wear skirts when you've never worn a skirt before. Try one on and then tell me about it. Preferably not in a lot of detail. Just say 'Rey, I finally tried on a skirt' and say whether or not it sucked. No details. _Please_, no details."

Lying atop his bed in a way that Cleopatra would, Shawn Michaels put his chin in his hand and remarked with a devilish grin, "Rey, now that I'm talking to you about all these things I've never told you about before, I think you're much more liberal than I expected."

Rey raised his pierced eyebrow. "Do I look super conservative to you or something?"

That was a good point. It was highly unlikely a heavily tattooed Mexican American who lived in California would be 'super conservative'.

Rey crawled onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling, or lack thereof.

"Now, you have to promise me you won't run off, Rey," Shawn said suddenly.

Rey sighed, "I promise."

"You have to swear, Rey," Shawn said, narrowing his eyes at him.

"I swear on the life of my Tia Danita that I won't leave this room all night," Rey sighed.

Shawn stared at him.

"My great aunt Danita," Rey explained.

"All right. Well…just so you know, even if you're lying, you won't be able to get out of here without me noticing."

Rey shrugged nonchalantly and lay down on the covers. Both of them were too afraid to peel back the crusty layers of bedding, so they just lay on top of the comforters, covering themselves with whatever jackets they had.

Shawn Michaels was asleep and snoring within eight minutes.

Rey went to sleep at 8:00 PM and set his cell phone alarm to go off in four hours so he could get at least some shut-eye.

Rey slept an unnervingly dreamless sleep until the phone beeped. He got up quickly and switched off the alarm. He froze: watching to see if he woke Shawn. He hadn't.

Rey changed back into his jeans and other clothes from that day. He'd neatly folded them inside his suitcase. He was surprisingly tidy for a guy.

"I'm sorry, Shawn," Rey whispered to his snoring friend and strode through the giant hole in the wall I mentioned earlier.

"Siento, Tia Danita," Rey muttered an apology as he stepped through the trees. His Great Aunt Danita was a sweet old lady who'd been dead for twenty years now. But Shawn didn't know she was dead, or that Rey didn't count swearing on the souls of people who he knew were already in heaven as a promise.

It being midnight and everything, it was pitch black outside. Rey didn't have a flashlight; because that was the last thing he would have thought to bring on a trip in his line of work.

He knew Batista was out here somewhere. One personality quirk that all the wrestlers teased him about was that his nickname in the ring was the Animal and unfailingly, every time Batista was upset he would run off into some kind of nature to be alone just like he was some kind of wild animal seeking refuge from civilization. It was odd, and sometimes Dave would be out there for hours and sometimes for the whole day.

Rey was often the one to go out and find him again.

He stepped carefully and when he was far enough in he could sense that someone was in there with him.

"Dave?" Rey called.

"Daaaave!"

It didn't take long for him to hear rustling sounds and the shape of a big, burly man come walking towards him.

Rey still couldn't see. It was so dark. The canopy of the trees was thick there, and he couldn't make out much with the few stray rays of moonlight that managed to squeeze through.

"Dave, is that you?"

"It's me," Batista confirmed.

"What do you want, Rey?" he demanded.

Now that he saw him, he didn't know what to say. So he just said, "Are you ready to come back?"

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

Rey turned around and started to head back but Batista went down a different path ahead of them. Rey hesitated. He knew where he'd come from was definitely a safe route, but he doubted that Dave would lead him in the wrong direction. Batista had an uncanny sense of direction.

Rey darted after his friend.

"So you came to get me, huh?"

Rey didn't say anything.

"You following me?"

"I just want to make sure you get back," Rey said weakly.

"I'm not the one that would have trouble finding his way in the dark," Batista reminded him. "I've been out here for hours and my eyes have adjusted to the dark. Yours haven't."

"I know. I just…felt like walking with you," Rey confessed timidly.

This was so difficult. Between the tension, lack of sleep and the darkness, Rey's nerves were in shambles.

"Watch your step. We're at the edge of a deep ravine."

"Where?" Rey asked a little too quickly.

"To our right by a foot or two."

"H-how deep?" Rey asked fearfully, sidestepping to the left a pace.

"I'd say at least a good hundred feet."

Rey scooted over towards the left a little more while still being able to see Dave ahead of him.

"So what? You woke up at midnight and realized you'd forgotten to come out and get me?"

Rey didn't like Batista insinuating that he felt the luchador treated him like a light in his house that Rey had forgotten to turn off.

"That's not true. I was worried about you all night!"

"Worried enough to go to sleep without looking for me?"

"I-I knew you were all right. I thought you wanted to be alone. I'm sorry."

"Drop the charade. You already said you don't care about me."

"I never said that! Of course I care about you!" Rey contradicted.

"Just not as much as Angie, right?"

They both stopped in their tracks.

Rey recoiled at that like he'd been hit. "I…I…"

He remembered how Shawn had told him that they all knew how much he loved Angie. And that that was why they couldn't confess to him. Batista must have resented her most out of all of the guys because he claimed to love Rey so intensely. And he remembered Shawn saying that Batista's remark about letting Randy sleep where Angie would was inexcusable. It totally was. And Rey regretted not smacking Dave upside the head back when he'd said it.

Rey was mad now, and Batista was somewhat startled by the luchador's clenched fists and furious expression.

"You can't make me choose between you and Angie. She's my wife and the mother of my kids. You can disrespect _me_ all you want because trust me, I have heard it all before. But I draw the line at Angie. You keep making all these comments about her like she's some cheap fling. _I'm married to her_. What don't you understand about that? Yes, I love her. Yes, I'm attracted to her. Yes, I have had children with her. Stop acting like that's a revelation. And stop acting like it's such a terrible thing that I love my family.

I love you too, Dave, I really do. You've been a very good friend to me for _years_, man. Don't act like I don't know that. I've been working my ass off defending your crazy self to all the guys and after all I said you proved me wrong."

"Oh, so you're going to accuse me of letting poor little Rey-Rey down, are you? Fuck you. And fuck all of that. I don't need you to make excuses for me."

"I don't need to accuse you of anything. You did. You did let me down."

"_Fuck you_, Rey! I let _you_ down?! I have loved you for years! I have protected you regardless of whether or not you were looking all these years! That's way more than I can say for the rest of the guys, trust me! They may kiss your ass when you're face to face with them, but behind your back, you are on your own. They wouldn't lift a finger to help you if you needed it. I _have_."

"You call hurting my friends _protection_?!"

"They aren't your friends, Rey! If you think I try to hurt you, then I don't hold a candle to them. They're worse than I am!"

Rey thought of Punk's hug and Jeff making him laugh and Shawn staying with him through the whole ordeal. And Cena's bloody nose.

"_No, they aren't_!" Rey screamed. "Look. I know what protection means. I promised to protect Angie when I married her. No matter how crazy they are, or how much I may hate them, Angie's friends are her business. And unless one of them tries to hurt her, they are _not_ my business. I can't just go around cracking skulls because I don't like people! That's what happens when you love someone. You have to accept a whole lot of responsibilities on their behalf. And one of those responsibilities is to respect their friendships with other people."

Batista, like an idiot, decided to stubbornly contradict Rey. "I do respect your relationships, I-"

"LIKE HELL YOU DO! You can't even handle me _talking_ to another person anymore! What has gotten into you?!"

Batista nearly pushed his eyebrows together he was frowning so hard.

"ANSWER ME!" Rey fumed.

But he had no answers for Rey.

"If somebody's trying to hurt me behind my back, then I want to hear about it! Show me proof! Tell me what happened! TALK TO ME!" His shoulders were heaving up and down he was so furious.

Dave didn't say anything. There was no proof. There was no plotting to hurt Rey. Nothing. No harmful intentions from anyone but himself.

And Rey saw it in Batista's expression, even in the dark.

"I think you're paranoid. I think you're getting paranoid. You're getting obsessive, and violent, and controlling, and I can't deal with it anymore, Dave. I can't. And I won't. I can't help you. I want to help you so bad, you don't even know. You can't seem to see that. But you won't talk to me."

Batista bit his lip and shut his mouth with a clenched jaw. Not a single noise escaped him in that moment.

"I don't think you love me Dave. I really don't."

Rey stood still, fists tightly closed. He was expecting Dave to hit him. He didn't think he'd dodge it. He felt like he deserved a punch or that at the very least he should let Dave release some steam.

For a moment Batista seemed shocked. Then his face shifted and he was finally angry. The same look passed over his face that he'd had when he'd wrecked all of the other wrestlers earlier.

He considered slapping Rey, but he didn't want to see the red sting on that beautiful face of his. He considered kicking him in the groin, but that would end any chance whatsoever of Rey ever seeing him in a romantic light.

Finally, Batista growled and settled on an action.

Before Rey knew what hit him, he felt his back slam against the trunk of a tree, and Batista squeezing the collar of his hoodie for the second time in recent memory.

"Let go of me."

"_Shut up_," Batista growled.

Rey held his tongue.

"You're just begging me to hit you. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Then you could be the victim."

Rey didn't say anything. He turned away from Batista. He was closer to the truth than he knew and it made Rey deeply uncomfortable.

"LOOK AT ME!! YOU WANTED ME TO TALK TO YOU!!! I'M TALKING!!" he roared, shaking Rey.

Rey raised his eyes back to Batista, and there was resentment in them that Batista had never seen there before.

"I'm talking," Batista said quietly, but fiercely.

Rey still didn't speak.

"You want to make me into the bad guy here. I know you do. You want to be the sweet, angelic little Rey-Rey. You want people to feel sorry for you. You want to wallow in self pity. You want me to hit you so that you can just walk off and never half to deal with me again. You want an excuse to get rid of me."

Rey refused to answer.

"ADMIT IT!!!" Batista yelled, shaking him again.

Rey didn't move and didn't respond. He just glared at Batista.

"I know you. I know how you think. The guys think you're a victim, they think you're so sweet and fragile, but you're not. You hate being confused. You hate me not fitting into your neat little plans for how all of us guys should act in our lives. You hate it so much that you would risk your friendship with me. You _bait_ me by coming in here when I'm still angry, and you know it. You usually give me a respectful distance between us when I'm mad at you, but not this time. This time you walked right in."

Rey swallowed as Dave loosened his grip on his collar. He didn't want to hear all of this. He'd been confronted with enough unpleasant information from or regarding Dave. He didn't want to hear any more.

Without thinking, Rey squirmed to get his arms loose from his jacket so that he could slide out and escape.

Dave's eyes flashed and he tightened his grip again so that the hoodie was pressing and chafing hard against Rey's throat. Rey was trapped.

"You wanted me to talk to you. I'm talking. Now it's your turn to fucking listen. You want me to hurt you. Because if I do that, then you will turn and walk right out of here and never speak to me again. You'll forget about me. You'll throw away our friendship because you're afraid of my feelings for you. You have no idea how much worse it could be for you."

"Put me the fuck down before I knee you," Rey said venomously.

Batista narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't dare."  
Rey kicked out and Batista barely jumped to the side quick enough to avoid the shot to the groin.

He glared back at Rey in disbelief.

He slammed the back of Rey's head against the tree trunk.

"You listen to me you hard-headed little fuck."

Rey swallowed.

"I care about you too much to let you trick me into hurting you. It won't work on me. You may be able to work me up enough to tear after any other guy. But I won't touch you."

"You call _this_ not touching me?" Rey demanded.

"Listen to me, Rey. Or I really will lose my cool on you."

Rey's eyes starting wetting up with angry tears. "Put me down," he muttered furiously.

"No. Not until you hear one last thing I have to say."

Rey dug his nails into Batista's hands, making him wince. But he was listening. He had no choice but to. It was all true and he hated both of them for it hurting so much to hear it. He'd tried his hardest for Dave, and now that his help didn't work he was so depressed that he hadn't known what to do. He figured maybe he'd be happier without Dave than with a Dave who wouldn't try to work things out.

Dave had said it when he'd chased Randy Orton up a flag pole. This was a problem that for once, Rey couldn't solve.

"You think this is horrible, that everyone's been lying to you for so long? You think that's upsetting? You think that it's the worst thing that could happen, to look the way you do and have everyone secretly be in love with you?"

"_How…could this be any worse…for me!_?" Rey demanded through clenched teeth. Dave was right. He couldn't stand it. It was killing him, all those lies that Dave must have told him to hide his infatuation. He didn't know if anyone was really who he thought they were. And the saddest thing was that Rey would have accepted his feelings for him. Dave claimed to care about him so much and know his likes and dislikes but he failed to see that the only thing Rey wanted was honesty. He could acclimate himself to being fawned over by a few bigger, closer fans. He could. But he couldn't stomach the past dishonesties from Dave for one more second. Punk and the others had already apologized for their lies. And Rey had already forgiven them. But right now he felt resentment and rage and confusion and hurt boiling up inside him like hot magma in a volcano.

Not his best friend. Not Dave. They couldn't have hurt each other for so long.

"You could be me, Rey. Everyone could hate you," Batista said quietly, his voice soaked in melancholy.

_**I**__ hate you._

_No, you don't hate him. You're just angry. Anyone in their right mind would understand why. That's not cool to lie about the nature of your relationship with somebody for so long._

_I do hate him._

_No, you don't, don't say that. _

_I do. _

_No. _

Rey glared right into Batista's eyes.

"I don't love you."

"I know," Batista said sadly.

"And I know you hate me, so just do it. Just hit me and get it over with."

"No, Rey."

"HIT ME!" Rey screamed.

Batista loosened his grip slightly, taking pity on his friend.

Rey tried to kick Batista again, but he dodged before Rey could make contact with his body.

"You are such a fucking liar, Dave…you lied to me for years..."

"And you wanted me to tell you I loved you just so you could reject me?" Batista asked mournfully.

Rey shook his head, furiously, sadly.

_No! Don't say it!_

"Let me go, goddamn it. I hate you. _I hate you_…" Rey sobbed angrily, clawing into Batista's hands and hanging his head.

_I can't believe you just said it._

"For someone who claims he's not gay, you can be a real bitch, you know that?" Batista growled and tossed Rey back against the tree where he hit it hard and slid down.

Rey didn't look up at him and concentrated on standing up straight. His knees had buckled and he'd landed on his tailbone.

Batista turned and started walking away.

Once again, Rey had the choice to follow him or not.

_Dave, Dave don't go! _

_Rey, you idiot! You didn't mean that! You couldn't possibly mean that! After all you've been through together you tell him you hate him?!_

_How could you?!_

Rey stood still, and fists clenched, purposely turned around and blindly returned the way he'd come.

But Dave just kept walking again.

The trouble was, Batista was already yards ahead of Rey and now he was walking extremely fast.

Rey tried to backtrack fast lest he lose his way out.

But he didn't say anything because maybe it would be better to be lost in a forest than to tell an angry, scorned Batista to slow down and come back for him right now.

And worse, Rey didn't want Dave. He felt stubbornly sure that he never wanted to see him for a long, long time.

But Rey had forgotten that Dave had gotten so far ahead of him on the way there at one point in the trail. And at that point he hadn't seen Dave avoid a certain unstable outcropping.

It broke underneath the cruiserweight's footsteps.

Batista heard a gasp and turned around.

Several more rocks fell in after Rey. Batista blanched an entire spectrum whiter.

"_Rey_?!"


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

**I took a bunch of your suggestions and stuck them into a blender and pulled out a plot. Batista has already stormed off angrily and he did hurt Rey, although not physically. I did agree that Batista needed to trash something or get in a fight; he just seems like he needed to do that at this point. **

**I did take a pretty weird suggestion to heart and if you read the comments then you'll know which one it was after this chapter…**

"_REY_?!"

Rey was gripping onto something as tightly as he could. It felt like a tiny sapling growing out of the side of the ravine. He prayed it would hold him.

It didn't.

Rey plummeted and with a loud snap smacked the base of his spine against another, lower, scrawny tree, breaking it. There weren't any more on the way down.

"Ow…" he moaned and pushed himself up. He'd landed on a small dirt ledge.

The fall had startled him pretty severely and it hadn't sunk in quite yet just how far down he'd fallen.

After a moment sitting and blinking in utter darkness with absolutely no moonlight it hit him. He swallowed and stretched his foot out tentatively to feel how much room he had. He reached it out an inch and then two, and then felt nothing beneath him. It was the same in every direction except in front.

Rey started shaking and he couldn't stop himself.

_You're in the dark._

_What if you're too far down for Dave to reach you?!_

_What if Dave doesn't even want to reach you?_

_One hundred fucking foot drop!_

_This edge won't last…I felt some of the edge slip off when I touched it with my foot…_

"REY!!!" Batista screamed again. It echoed.

Rey's vocal chords were temporarily frozen.

Batista leaned in, listening in to any possible response.

"Oh, God, I killed him!" Batista blurted.

Then he heard a whimper somewhere down there.

"Rey, is that you?"

"Y-yes!"

"Are you all right?"

"I-I'm not hurt." Rey tried to stand up and his knees buckled under him. He tried not to hyperventilate as the fear cause tremors to course through his body.

He set his back against the cliff's side, trying desperately to regain some sense of security. He hugged his knees to his chest. This was his worst nightmare.

Batista felt terrible.

_If I hadn't…if I had just slowed down, or just talked him out of going back, I…I wouldn't have let him fall if I had let myself stay closer to him…stupid, stupid, stupid…_

_It's all my fault. And now he must be so scared all alone down there. _

"Dave…please help. Please," Rey begged. He was honestly afraid that Dave was so angry with him now that he'd let him stay down there forever.

"Rey, don't panic! How far down are you?"

"I don't know, I can't see…" Rey choked.

"Rey, you need to stay calm, okay? I know you're afraid of heights, but you can get through this! Just hold on! Together we can find a way to pull you out!"

Rey had fallen into a stunned trance. He started praying the Hail Mary in rapid Spanish, but he was so frightened that it ended up being a hurried fusion between that, an Our Father, and an organic prayer.

"Rey! Stop trying to talk to Jesus! Talk to me!"

Rey gasped for air, and closed his eyes. "I can't do this, I can't do this…"

"Rey, you _can_ do this! Just calm down!"

"Oh, God…" Rey opened his eyes and looked beneath him as another few rocks crumbled off the edge of his ledge. It was slowly but surely coming apart.

"Don't say 'down'…" he whimpered, clutching behind him into the rock. He couldn't get a hold. Some parts were clay, but it was mostly gravel-like material.

"Okay! Okay! Forget I said that!" Dave conceded. "Just look up at me, Rey! Don't look down!"

Rey slowly turned his head. "I can't see you…" he said weakly.

Dave swallowed fearfully. "How far down are you, Rey?"

His eyes adjusted to the darkness after a few seconds. "I don't know, I don't know." Dave leaned his whole upper body over the edge, peering down.

"Jesus Christ, is that you or a grizzly bear staring at me right now?!" Rey demanded.

Batista sighed. "Grizzly bear," he answered sarcastically.

"You're not half as funny as you think you are! I'd like to see your big ass down here on this fucking disintegrating ledge! You'd be dead already!" Rey yelled.

Batista chuckled. "Yeah, you're probably right. But you can see me, can't you?"

"Yes…"

"Can you reach my hand?" Dave stretched his arm as far as it could go, and Rey did the same from the opposite direction.

"You're not even close! There's like four feet in between us!" Rey shouted.

Dave looked around, thinking. He didn't want Rey to risk jumping up to try and grab hold of his hand. They would probably only get one try at it because if Rey couldn't reach Dave then when he landed back on the ledge the extra force would break it and Rey would fall.

"Dave! Go back and get help! I'll be fine!" Rey yelled, as more of the ledge fell away.

"No, you won't be! You said the ledge is disintegrating! How do I know you'll still be here when I get back?"

Rey didn't answer.

"Just go, Dave, just hurry. Just hurry and do something…" Rey pleaded.

"Okay! Okay! I'll be right back!" Dave called down.

Oh, God…

He didn't want to lose Rey. And he _really_ couldn't stand the thought of Rey's death being his fault. What would his family think? What would they even _do_ without him? Hell, what would _any_ of them do without Rey?

Dave swallowed and as he searched around for a tree branch long enough to reach, muttering to himself over and over again, "Four feet, four feet…"

And he thought about all the fights Rey had broken up or prevented over the years.

He thought about the tag-team partners Rey had had and how he'd protected them and made them better wrestlers.

He thought of how good a father Rey was to his kids. He was so dedicated that it was difficult for him to get out of "father-mode" and he couldn't help but take care of the younger wrestlers like they were his own.

Deep down, Batista had known that Rey wasn't being nice to the others because he was playing favorites or because he was trying to make Batista jealous.

Rey helped people for absolutely no reason at all.

And he never expected the kindness to be returned to him. He never expected all of the gifts from his fans. He'd never expected Randy or anyone else to develop a crush on him.

So Rey really had been telling the truth.

He had truly been shocked to discover that the entire roster was in love with him.

All he'd ever wanted from his friends was a little loyalty and for them to be honest. And guiltily, Dave realized that he had been neither lately. Rey was the only one who had been defending him and taking his side and he'd accused him of siding with the others. Rey had sworn that Dave would never hurt him, and now Rey's life was in danger because of him. Rey had apologized in tears for misleading Dave and causing him to fall in love under false pretenses. And Dave had never accepted his apology.

It was no use.

"DAVE! DAVE, its breaking! It's breaking! It's falling away, and I can't get a grip! I can't do this! Dave!" Rey screamed in panic as the majority of the ledge crumbled beneath his weight. "I can't do this…" Rey murmured desperately, clawing at the clay, but it was too wet and unstable, and it just kept slipping.

Please turn into a rock wall. Please turn into a steel cage. Please turn into anything but a fucking sheer-faced break-away cliff.

"Oh, God…Oh, God…I'm sorry, Dave, I'm so sorry…" Rey moaned. "I didn't mean what I said, I care about you Dave, I don't hate you, please…please tell everyone I'm sorry…please tell all of them I love them…please tell Angie and Dominik and Aalyah I love them so much, please…"

Batista's heart broke for his friend. He knew that Rey hadn't meant what he'd said.

"No! No, Rey! You can't give up! Here! Try to grab this! Rey!" Batista thrusted the tree branch as far down as he could reach it.

"I can't…" Rey gasped. "I can't…I'm too scared, I can't…"

"Rey, you have to try!"

"I'm sorry, Dave…" Rey cried out. "I'm sorry…

"Rey, I forgive you! Just grab the fucking tree branch! Come on!"

Rey whimpered. "I slipped further down…I can't reach you anymore…"

"Yes, you can! You can jump higher than this! I've seen you jump over people for Christ's sake!"

"I can't, Dave…I can't…"

"Rey!"  
"Dave…I…I love you as a friend. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you felt this way for me for so long, I don't blame you for hating me, I don't…I don't…"

Batista expression shifted. Where was the resentment? Where was the anger? It's my fault you fell off a cliff, and you could die! You hate heights and you're not even blaming me even now when I could have helped you? How could you blame yourself for falling off a cliff?

All the fury and frustration drained out of Dave Batista. He gulped.

Rey wasn't trying to get Dave to hit him and subsequently push him away just because he was an upset control freak that realized he couldn't solve Dave's problems.

He was doing it because he felt that he had failed his friend. And Rey was unaccustomed to failing people. The guilt was so severe that he could barely hold back tears when he was near Batista anymore.

Rey had never stopped loving him, even though it was just as a friend. Ironically, it was Dave who had seemed to stop loving Rey.

"I don't hate you, Rey."

"You-you don't?"

"Look up at me, Rey," Batista said gently, tears in his eyes.

_Please God, don't let me lose him._

Rey turned his neck upwards, searching for Batista.

Dave smiled down at him. "Rey, please…I'm sorry too."

Rey looked right through him with those big doe eyes. He took a deep breath and smiled back weakly. "Get a tighter grip. You're gonna need it."

Rey zeroed in on the branch. "Come on…" he whispered. Rey launched himself off of what was left of his perch and it toppled away beneath him.

Batista held his breath and then felt the sudden tug of one hundred and seventy five pounds on the end of his branch.

He scrambled backwards and pulled Rey up.

Rey had a death grip on the branch and was shaking pretty badly.

"Fucking…heights…I hate them…so much…you don't even know…"

Batista reached out gingerly and carefully pried the tree branch out of the smaller wrestler's hands.

"Rey, you're safe now," Batista grinned, relieved.

Rey blinked for a second and then barreled into Dave's chest as he bear-hugged the larger man.

"Jesus Christ! Solid ground! Oh, I love solid ground!" Rey murmured, squeezing the life out of Batista.

Rey was trembling horribly.

Batista wrapped his arms around him protectively. He was grateful that Rey still trusted him enough to run to him for comfort.

He rubbed Rey's back. The poor thing was still trembling.

Through the softness of Rey's thin t-shirt Dave could feel the warmth emanating from his body.

He couldn't blame him for being afraid of falling down a ravine in pitch black darkness alone. Not with his debilitating fear of heights. Not to mention when his current emotional state wasn't exactly tip top.

"Shh…it's okay. You're safe, I've got you."

Rey sniffed and buried his face into Dave's chest instinctively.

Dave remembered all of the times Rey would bounce around the ring, stealthily, speedily crushing opponents alongside him. Dave was the powerhouse and Rey was the speed demon. He remembered the huge, excited smile on Rey's face every time they had won together. And he remembered Rey leaping into his arms, startling Dave the first time it happened. But by the second time he was aching for it. The feel of Rey's smaller, muscular body, squeezing tightly onto him, Rey's gloved hands around Batista's neck, or ruffling his hair, Rey's face buried into his chest.

Their hot bodies rubbed together and their sweat mixed as Dave hugged Rey back.

Rey was so much smaller than him that to Batista he always felt almost like a child in his arms. Or like a tough little dog. Batista loved Rey for those embraces he gave. And he loved the surprising amount of strength bundled into that compact body.

That hug the day that Eddie died was the first time he realized how powerful Rey really was because Rey had never hugged him so tightly before then. He'd felt butterflies in his stomach without knowing why. It was a familiar feeling that was previously only stirred up by women.

He hated to see Rey like this. Shaking, and terrified. It wasn't right.

"You're safe with me, Rey; I won't let anything happen to you." He smoothed over Rey's shoulder blades and tense, tense back. Finally, Rey loosened and his impressive, comparatively smaller muscles un-flexed.

Dave patted him. "You okay?"

Rey nodded.

They sat there together in silence as Rey's breathing slowly returned to normal.

"Rey, I-I don't want to sound creepy or anything since I'm so close to you right now, but I…I don't know what the feelings are that I have for you. But I do know that they're strong feelings. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm not in love with you. Maybe I'm just as confused as you are about this whole thing."

"Somehow I doubt that," Rey murmured into Batista's chest.

Batista chuckled. "Okay, maybe not."

"But let me say one thing."

Rey sat back onto the ground (reaching his hand behind him to confirm that there was a ground, first) and crossed his legs. "What is it?"

"I did start thinking of you differently the day that Eddie died."

Rey nodded.

"But that was just an…like an inkling. I didn't know what that feeling was. And I didn't feel it again until recently. To be honest, I've been attracted to you ever since that day, but I never felt anything so strong as that first inkling until very recently. So yeah, I've been keeping my feelings secret from you for a while. But I haven't been lying to you for years, like you thought. Nothing that bad."

"How long?"

"Maybe…this year. Maybe this year was the first time I ever felt a prolonged sense of….for a lack of a better word, love…towards you. After Eddie's death it was just physical. I know that that sounds bad, but it's the truth."

Rey's shoulders un-hunched themselves.

"This year…?"

"Yeah…"

"Oh. That is a relief," Rey admitted, smiling weakly.

Batista reached out and when Rey didn't flinch, he patted his shoulder gently. "You all right? The fall shook you pretty badly, didn't it?"

Rey nodded.

After a moment, he swallowed and said, "I'm sorry, Dave. I care about you, I do…I just…I love you like a brother. I can't feel anything more than that towards you, I'm sorry."

Rey's eyes were red and wet. In the moonlight, he could see them.

"I know, Rey," Batista admitted reluctantly.

"I _am_ frustrated that you kept something so big a secret from me. I thought you and I were open with each other. But I guess not. I'm just…mad about that."

Batista looked at him. "I was afraid you'd never want to talk to me again if I told you I had a crush on you."

"I would have still talked to you," Rey said quietly.

"Really, Rey?" Batista asked skeptically.

Rey looked him right in the eye and a spark of anger shot through his visage again. "Yeah. Really."

Batista blinked and looked at the ground.

"You really don't know me as well as you thought you did. I'm not as closed-minded as you keep insisting. Maybe you spent so much time _looking_ at me that you never actually saw who I am," Rey said bitterly.

Batista swallowed.

"The reason I didn't tell you wasn't because I thought you were closed-minded. I don't think that."

"Then why?'

"I wanted to keep pretending that you loved me back," Batista murmured.

Rey stared at him.

"I knew that if I told you then you would reject me. Either you'd reject me and we'd stay friends, like right now, or you'd reject me and never have another thing to do with me."

Rey was beginning to understand.

Batista had gone through two marriages and many girlfriends over the course of his lifetime. Maybe he wanted to feel safe with someone. With absolutely no risk of rejection. And what was a safer relationship than one in which the other person was unaware there even was a relationship?

If Rey didn't know Dave loved him then there was no way for Rey to break things off with him.

"I think you'll be able to find someone better than me, Dave," Rey said quietly.

"I don't know. I kind of doubt that," Batista said, half-teasingly.

Rey smiled weakly.

"I thought you'd stopped trusting me or something," he said.

"No, Rey, no. I know you'd do just about anything for me. You have, before."

Rey nodded.

"I'm sorry I tried to hurt you. And I don't hate you. I was just angry, I didn't mean it."

"I already told you I forgive you, Rey," Batista said, downplaying the effect the words had truly had on him.

"I don't believe you," Rey whispered. "I really was bitching when I said that…" he murmured guiltily. "Stupid…"

"Rey," Batista said after a minute and moved closer to the smaller man. He rustled over on his knees and leaned down, setting his neck against Rey's. He wrapped his left arm around Rey's collarbone and set both his hands spread out along Rey's back. Rey reached up and clung to Dave's bicep with his hands.

"I forgive you," Batista murmured into Rey's ear.

Rey swallowed and a tear streaked down his cheek.

"And you're not bitchy at all; I take that back, okay?"

"Okay," Rey said softly. "Now I believe you."

Batista smiled.

Rey laid his forehead onto Dave's arm, pulling it lower across his chest with his hands so that his neck could bend just enough.

Rey held onto him and rocked them both side to side for a while.

He hadn't had a nice, quiet moment with Dave in what felt like eons.

He cherished it for a minute.

"I was scared that I would die down there with you hating me."

"Rey. Rey. I don't hate you."

He sat back and smoothed his large, warm hands over the bones in Rey's shoulders.

"Then why do you get so jealous? Why don't you let me talk to anybody else without starting a fight about it?" Rey sniffed, looking up into Dave's eyes with his own, big, penetrating wet ones.

Batista thought about that for a moment.

"I don't know. I don't know why I've been treating you like this. I just don't want you to get hurt."

"Why would I?"

Silence.

"The other guys. I didn't ever want them to touch you," Batista said lamely.

"But they don't want to hurt me. And even if they did, I can protect myself, I just got through telling Shawn that, I-"

"I didn't want you to have to."

Rey blinked and gazed blankly back at him.

"What do you mean?"

"How many times have you kept me from beating another guy? Countless. How many times have you saved my ass as my tag-team partner? At least twice for every match we've been in. You've helped me practice, and you've made me better. You've helped me work out and you helped me get stronger. You always remind me to go to sleep and eat healthy and take my vitamins, and be nicer to people. You do all these favors for me all the time. You hug me before and after every match and I've never once thought to hug you first. I've never thought to remind you of anything. I've never had to break up a fight with you in it in my life. I've never done anything as nice for you as you've done for me.

And the only person you ever seem to go to for help, the only person you ever want when you're not home is Angie."

Rey twitched.

"I can't do a damn thing for you, and do you know how frustrating that is?!"

Rey slowly, blankly shook his head.

"What I can do is save your ass in a match maybe just one more time than you can save mine. I try to. Because it seems like the only thing I can do is beat the hell out of people for you. That's what I can do. So I thought I would do that for you. I thought I could protect you. And I thought you'd let me."

Dave hung his head and Rey blinked at him.

"And to know that I hurt you by hurting those guys makes me feel like shit…I'm so sorry I did that. I'm sorry, Rey. I was so stupid. And I keep rambling on whenever I talk to you and I always end up insulting you or belittling you, and I don't want to. But I never have the guts to take it back, and so I'm sorry for that, too. I treat you like crap, and I don't know why, because I care about you more than anybody else in the whole world, Rey. I do. And I…I just get so frustrated that there's nothing I can do to help you. And I get so angry, I can't see straight sometimes. And my mouth just opens and terrible, horrible things tumble out…"

"Like what you said when you wouldn't let Randy sleep in the same bed as me?" Rey asked quietly.

"I'm so sorry about what I said then, Rey. I wish I could take it back. I know now that you meant well, you weren't trying to get a rise out of me. I'm sorry. That was…that was unforgivable, what I said about you and Angie. All of the things I've said about Angie are unforgivable."

And Rey saw that Dave truly did mean it. He was really, honest to God, sorry about every terrible thing he'd said.

It was Dave's turn to dive into someone's chest and cry.

Rey hooked his arms securely around Dave's neck and hung onto him. Batista felt so encompassed, so protected and appreciated.

He couldn't believe that that little body could be so firm and so strong. And so assuring.

"I forgive you, Dave, I forgive you," Rey whispered.

Batista came away from him a little to see his face.

Rey set his palm on the back of Dave's head and pulled the larger man close to him, knocking Dave's forehead gently against his own. This close, Rey's chocolate eyes were all Dave could look at.

"I forgive you, too. Just promise not to say things like that again. And to be less controlling. You need to promise me you'll get help, Dave. Wouldn't you get help for me?"

"I promise," Batista whispered sincerely, not breaking Rey's gaze. Rey released his skull and shut his eyes for a moment. He found Dave's hands and held them up at the height of his shoulders.

Rey smiled. "I have your hands, so you can't cross your fingers," he teased.

"I promise," Dave repeated, smiling.

Rey leaned back and reseated himself. He held onto Dave's hands, squeezed them with his own and them set them down onto Dave's knees, letting him go.

"You do know that that apology speech was the most words you've said to me in like, months, right?" Rey asked, grinning.

Dave laughed at Rey and patted his back. "You are so crazy…you really had me going there when you fell in that hole."

"I thought I wasn't going to make it out of there…" Rey sighed.

"I could barely tell, I mean, you only told me like half your will!"

"I did not! I just wanted you to tell Angie I loved her!"

"You weren't going to die!"

"You don't know that! People fall down cliffs and die all the time!"

It wasn't even a real argument. It was the friendly contradicting banter between friends. The kind of talks they used to have before Dave had gone off the deep end.

Rey held out his hand and Batista held onto it. Rey leaned in and rested his temple against Dave's heart.

Batista smiled and remembered this feeling. The feeling of Rey running into his arms and burying himself in his torso.

It was like they'd come full circle now. This whole thing had begun years ago with Rey in his arms. That's how Dave had slowly fallen in love with him. And here he was accepting that Rey didn't love him back; being hugged in Rey's arms again.

He'd taken that memory for granted, that day that Eddie died. It would have been amazing for Rey to display a romantic kind of love with that hug. But maybe it was even more incredible that he'd trusted a friend enough to hold him as he cried.

Batista started a little, and a peaceful look came over him. His eyes glazed over.

He'd forgotten that after the hug, Rey had looked up at him gratefully with a singular, small, perfect smile.

He had lost the meaning of that moment. He had forgotten who Rey was. He'd been so busy obsessing over Rey's touch, that he'd forgotten Rey's smile. His kindness and his trust.

"So are we…are we cool now?" Batista asked.

Rey came away from his hug and looked at Dave.

He beamed a brilliant, tiny smile. And there he was again, smiling back through the years with that same look, whether he recognized it or not.

"Yeah. But…what do we do now? What do we do from here? Because I…Dave, I'm not gonna leave Angie…"

"I got the message, Rey. I got it. I know you can't leave your family. I can't force you to see me the way I see you."

Rey nodded gratefully, but a little sadly. "Is there anything…anything G-rated I could do to make you feel better…?"

Batista chuckled. "'G-rated'…" he rumbled in his deep voice.

Rey grinned. "Emphasis on the 'G '."

They both thought it over for a minute. They stood up and knocked the dirt off of their clothes.

"What do you think? Therapy?" Rey asked.

"_Ooooh_, big time," Batista agreed.

"Both of us?"

"Not together. Just me, probably," Dave admitted.

"I don't know, I think I need therapy…I'm being bombarded by other men…" Rey sighed as they walked out of the woods.

Both of them had their hands out in front of them so they didn't run into trees.

Rey was the first to report what he was bumping into. They traded off remarks.

"Rock."

"Boulder."

"Badger."

"Stump," Dave said. "Wait, did you just say _badger_, Rey?!"  
"I have no clue what that was, it was kinda squishy and it growled at me."

"Oookay, I think we should walk a little faster."

They laughed a little nervously as they speed-walked back to the hotel.


	11. Chapter 11

**Surprise! I used the "a bunch of rocks falling from the sky" comment!! **

**XD yeah, the weirder the suggestion, the more it gets my imagination going and the more it helps my writer's block go bye-bye. **

**My train of thought: "Hmm, rocks…I had a cliff earlier…maybe I should have another one…"**

**So thank you, ****Esca Madeline****; you helped my writer's block! All of your suggestions were very helpful, though, for what the mood of the "climax" in the story should feel like. Thank you so much! I hope it was violent enough for you, a lot of you said you wanted a bunch of people to die…uh…and they didn't…sorry… -_-; **

**Here's the last chapter now! Bon voyage! **

**Check out my second fanfic "Afraid of the Dark" when I post it! **

"Where the fuck were you last night?!" Shawn screamed: bags under his eyes.

Everyone meeting out in the motel hallway to walk to breakfast together had bags under their eyes, including Rey and Batista. They'd been out most of the night saving Rey's ass from the cliff.

Rey had fallen asleep in his clothes back in his room. He figured Shawn would find out in the morning that he'd been gone in the night one way or another so he might as well have made it obvious.

They snorted together.

"Well, we sure as hell didn't get eaten by badgers," Batista said through his laughter.

Rey exploded into hysterics and couldn't stop.

C.M. Punk raised his brow quizzically. "Can you guys keep it down? I have a headache. There were all these scary bugs right outside my room keeping me awake."

"Cicadas," Jeff Hardy commented. "Fucking huge ones, too, man. Not cool."

Apparently the two of them had shared a room and bonded somewhat because of their shared horror of nocturnal insect invasion.

"Sorry about that," Rey chuckled.

"Aw, you never get sleep, who are we kidding? You and your insomniac circles under your eyes," Jeff said, turning on Punk already. Their fighting was not over, after all.

Punk blushed. "I do _not_ have insomnia. I just look like this. My dad has bags under his eyes, too. It's genetic. Like dimples or something."

"Dimples are overrated," Triple H commented. "Shawn has dimples only you'd never notice because you can't hear yourself think when he's around."

"I love you and your rapidly receding hairline, too, big guy," Shawn replied, grinning to display his dimples.

Randy rolled his eyes. "HBK snores super loudly. He kept waking us up."

"You and Triple H were rooming together again, Randy?" Rey asked, surprised.

"We decided to join forces against this monstrosity," Triple H confirmed.

"Keep talking ho bag, I won't send you sweet nothings anymore if you keep being so cruel to me," Shawn warned cheerily.

Rey sensed the girl-fighting was in full effect, but with no small boys around to protect from the carnage (aside from Randy Orton) he decided to sit and watch the fur fly.

"How you guys seriously managed to stay alive before Rey came along to solve all your problems is beyond me," Batista noted.

Rey sighed wordlessly.

"And I can't believe you just called him a ho bag," Batista added.

"You're talkative lately. What happened, did Rey-Rey give you a little somethin-somethin last night that made you feel better?" Cena asked.  
Batista just blushed, but Rey's eyes flashed. "No, he did _not_."

Seconds later he smoothly hooked his foot under Cena's shin and the behemoth wrestler face-planted directly on the tile.

"Ooh, the floor is mucho slippery this morning. You better watch your feet," Rey said calmly and skipped over the bigger wrestler.  
They all blinked and scrambled over him before he had time to sit up.

"Rey's back!!!" Jeff whispered excitedly to Shawn and he and Punk bumped fists out of sheer excitement.

Rey did in fact, look like himself. In fact, his steps were bouncy once more.

They arrived at the breakfast nook and everyone promptly freaked out. Wrestlers were notorious for being crazy obsessed with their fitness and muscle size and amount of weight they could bench press and what weight class they fell into, etc.

They were all raging health nuts.

What lay before them was positively the antithesis of a healthy breakfast.

"Tsk tsk," Shawn Michaels said, shaking his head.

Mounds of greasy greasy waffles and pancakes were stacked onto plates.

So were powdered donuts with about an inch-thick layer of powdered sugar coated onto their fat little circles.

The only cereal was Froot Loops and Count Chocula. There was no skim or low fat or soy milk, there was no decaf coffee, and there was no orange juice or water.

Flies were everywhere.

And this, keep in mind, was in the eyes of people who drank protein drinks and blended vegetables together and called it dessert.

Jeff Hardy was the only one fearless (and naïve) enough to approach the nasty excuse for food.

He was biting the back of his thumbnail and tentatively reached out his opposite index finger to poke at a donut. It exhaled powdered sugar onto him in a little cloud.

"Don't touch it, man, I think it's alive," Cena cautioned.

Shawn went and pulled Jeff back before the Hardy brother could stuff it in his mouth.

"I'd rather not get AIDs from my breakfast this morning," Punk said. "I can't believe this is somebody's definition of a continental breakfast."

"Where's the fresh fruit?" Cena whined. "I can't start my morning without some fruit!!!"

Triple H's eye twitched nervously and Randy Orton took out a calculator and manically started typing in an estimate on the calorie count of each food item before him.

"Tell me how much fat is in all that shit, you anorexic little weasel, I want to know," Chris Jericho demanded.

"That makes you anorexic too…" HBK sang.

"Nobody's calling anybody anorexic, you both look like a healthy weight to me, so drop it," Rey warned.

"Thank you, Rey," Jericho said happily, setting his hands on his hips and feeling light and beautiful.

Randy smiled up at Rey and then pouted. "It's like…thousands of calories."

They all shuddered. The horror.

Rey gagged. "Okay, okay, that's it. I'm going to go to a Seven Eleven to get some granola bars or something."

"With fruit in it?" Cena asked hopefully.

"If they sell ones with fruit, you can have one with fruit," Rey said patiently and walked out the door, covering his mouth to keep from smelling the mess on the tables.

None of them had their rental cars anymore. They'd turned them in. So they walked to the Seven Eleven.

Rey stood waiting there as all the others slowly filtered towards him. The skinnier, more hyper ones like Punk, Hardy, and Orton all arrived together. Then came HBK, Cena and Batista. Cryme Tyme, Big Show, Kane and Triple H all managed to show up.

Jericho wheezed his way to last place, totally ruining the image he was now trying to portray of being perfectly healthy.

"Jesus, Rey, stopping running so fast," he rasped.

Rey looked up at him. "Oh, I wasn't running. You haven't _seen_ me run if you thought _that_ was running."

He turned and went inside the building. They all agreed on a pack of Cliff bars that had a variety of flavors in it.

Rey set it on the counter and smiled sweetly at the woman at the desk.

She was an older lady and looked almost faint when she saw the handsome Latino figure before her.

"Good morning," Rey said cheerfully.

"That'll be…four fifty," she managed to get out.

(The label had said twenty dollars. It was a big pack and Cliff bars are expensive!!)

Rey put twenty-five dollars on the counter.

"Keep the change."

"Have a nice day!" the lady called as Rey turned to leave.

"You too!" Rey called back, smiling back over his shoulder at her one last time.

That lady, if you asked her, would remember him for years afterwards, even though she never saw him but the one time. She probably fantasized about him when she was bored.

"Rey, that lady was gonna let you slide with like-" Randy said and paused to type numbers into his calculator. "Eighty percent discount!"

Shawn caught Rey's eye. "You sly dog! Are you adapting to the cuteness effect already?"

"You mean you guys have to correct to like a certain margin of error?" Punk asked.

"Yes. Because our cuteness throws off people's common sense," Michaels explained proudly. "It's the gift that keeps on giving."

"I just read the price tag and it said twenty dollars and tax would make it a little more than that," Rey explained.

"But that still means you did give her some change," Randy calculated.

"Do you always tip people at Seven Eleven?" Cena inquired.

Rey shrugged. "I don't know. I doubt they ever get a lot of business there."

"I don't even know if this place would show up on Google Earth it's so remote," C.M. Punk commented, taking a sip of coffee that he'd bought in the store.

"Punk…man, what are you doing to yourself now? Does Straight Edge include the 'just say no to food' slogan somewhere?" Rey asked.

"No. But I can get by on coffee until lunch," Punk explained.

"But we don't know when we're _getting_ lunch," Shawn reminded him. "We're flying home today."

"And they always forget to serve us food at lunchtime on airplanes," Jeff whined, jumping up and down and stomping his converse.

"That's because these two tanks here look like they could eat the airline out of house and home," Cena said, jabbing his thumb back at Kane and Big Show.

"No offense, you two."

"None taken," they said at the same time.

Rey took one more look at Punk's coffee. "No, man, eat some carbs before you keel over and die," Rey advised. "Here. Take one."

"Okay…" Punk caved and selected a bar.

They all sat down on the curb together, Rey in the middle with Punk and various others to his left, and Shawn and more wrestlers to his right.

They all grabbed a bar (except for Show and Kane, who each needed two) and gnawed away at the deliciousness.

"So, Rey, have you given any thought to how you would prefer all of us to relate to you from now on?" Punk asked, biting into his super chocolatey chocolate chocolate chip Cliff bar.

"You're a regular gothic Shakespeare, Punk, that was fuckin' eloquent as hell," Cena complimented.

"Thank you," Punk responded.

Rey sat chewing thoughtfully for a second. Batista watched him discreetly.

"I'm still considering it."

"When do you think you'll be ready to tell us you final decision on the whole issue?" Punk questioned calmly.

"Well…maybe next Friday after Smackdown. I need some time to be with my family and let it all sink in. I need to take some time to adjust. You guys have had years to think of me the way you do," Rey reminded them.

They all considered that.

"But I've only had a few days to think of you guys thinking of me the way you do. If that makes any sense," Rey finished a little awkwardly.

"Yeah, okay. That sounds fair," Punk agreed. "You can bring it up when you're ready next Friday."

"Thanks."

"What about Batista?" Jeff blurted.

Awkward silence. Dave was not known for his way with words, so it was up to Rey to do all the talking for the both of them.

"Well…we made amends. Right?" Rey smiled hopefully at Batista.

Batista smiled back. "Yeah."

"I mean, what do we do with him?" Jeff asked.

"What do you mean? Like…stick him in a zoo? Ship him to China? Roast him and eat him? What the fuck are you talking about? Please be more specific than that," Rey complained.

"I mean, how do we deal with Batista beating everybody to a bloody pulp all the damn time?" Cena clarified.

"Yeah!" Randy said.

Rey exhaled and stared at Dave. Dave just stared back at him. They couldn't think of a solution.

"Anger management."

It was Triple H who said it (because maybe he'd been to some?).

Rey's eyes slowly widened. A sugary grin stretched out across his face and Batista saw the light bulb go on above his head.

He gawked at him. "_Rey_!" he protested.

"You know you need it, Dave," Rey said in his fatherly tones.

Batista grumbled, "I don't want any fucking goddamn anger management…"

Rey ignored him and turned to Triple H. "Can you think of anybody who would work well with Dave?"

"Well, I took a bunch of classes," Triple H started. (I was right! He had had some!)

"I made him," Shawn put in.

"_Shawn_ made me take a bunch of classes," Triple H continued. "From this one lady. You'll like her. Her name's Adalia Jimenez. She's a psychiatrist."

"Those are the ones with medical degrees, right?" Rey asked.

"Yeah."

"I suggest shock therapy, Dave. Have the nice lady taze you all day," Triple H teased.

"Her name's _Jimenez_?!" Shawn asked, chuckling.

"Yeah, that's right," Triple H said, picking up on HBK's twisted train of thought as always.

"That's exactly what you need, a crazy Latino lady to assist with your problems crushing on your spicy Latino man, here," Shawn said, laughing. "Maybe the two of you can trade stories about your love lives."

Batista proceeded to melt into the concrete out of sheer embarrassment.

Rey rolled his eyes.

"Mmm, girl, I know just what you're saying about those sexy hombres," Cena said, impersonating a Latina with a bad attitude.

Rey smacked Cena's forehead playfully.

"What is _wrong_ with all of you…?!" he groaned.

"Rey, whatever happened to all those fan mail packages you had?" Shawn asked Rey all of a sudden.

"I Fed-Exed them to my house from the hotel's address. Why?"

"Come on, Rey-Rey, you know what I'm asking you…" Shawn sang to him.

"No, I doooon't," Rey answered back in a singsong voice.

"What _are_ you asking him?" Batista demanded.

Shawn rolled his eyes. "You guys take the subtlety out of everything. Oh, well. I was wondering if our sweet little Prince Charming here had to pay the costs of shipping and handling."

Rey blinked at him. "Shipping and whah?"

They all stared at him.

Rey burst out laughing, unable to keep a straight face any longer. "Oh, that was great…I had you guys going there for a minute."

He had trouble catching his breath he was laughing so hard.

Shawn stared at him, not amused. "Oh, ha ha ha."

Rey caught his breath but couldn't wipe the smile from his face. "Of course I had to pay shipping and handling."

"What are you even going to _do_ with all those things? It'll take you forever just to unwrap them," Batista pointed out.

Rey smiled. "Well, I'm gonna have my kids help me out. It'll be like Christmas morning."

**

They weren't even close to missing their flight. They all stood around at the airport warily for two hours.

_Don't break down, plane, don't break down,_ they all thought collectively.

Kane and Big Show had an epic rock-paper-scissors tournament.

Randy fell asleep and Jeff poked at him and made him say even more hilarious food words in his sleep while Jericho watched in awe.

Shawn, Triple H, Batista and Cryme Tyme had a huge card game.

C.M. Punk got out his ipod and shared head phones with Rey.

They all scrambled onto the airplane when it arrived.

Triple H carried Randy in and tossed him into a seat and Punk shook his head exasperatedly and buckled the unconscious body in so he didn't fly around the cabin when the plane took off.

There were two seats together, so Kane sat with Big Show, Cryme Tyme sat together, Jeff sat next to Randy's body, Cena sat with Jericho and Triple H sat with Shawn. There was a seat open next to Punk and another next to Batista. Rey looked from one to the other, torn. Punk winked at Rey and waved him over towards Dave.

"Go," he mouthed.

Rey smiled gratefully and sat next to Batista.

"Cross your fingers that we don't explode out of the sky," Rey said as he sat down.

Batista laughed. "Does Angie still have to tell you every time that your plane's not gonna go down?"

"Every time my flight gets delayed with so many problems, yeah."

The flight went smoothly (without any explosions, too!) but Cena was right, the flight attendants took one look at the horde of enormous wrestlers and decided not to risk offering food to them. So they went without lunch until they landed.

Shawn peeked out from his aisle seat towards the end of the flight to see how Rey and Batista were doing. He broke into a grin and elbowed Triple H.

Triple H leaned out too and couldn't help but smile.

They both rallied all the guys' attention, silently pointing forward.

Everyone snuck a glance and stifled a giggle.

Rey had fallen asleep on Batista's shoulder, his mouth slightly open, breathing quietly. He stirred every once in a while, snuggling closer onto Batista's soft, gray pullover hoodie.

Batista was smiling contently and mutely turned the pages of his book.

Shawn snapped a photo of them when they weren't looking.

**

Rey spent about a week with his family, sleeping in, doing laundry, getting tackled by his children, and getting romantic with Angie.

He considered telling her his dilemma with the guys and decided he might as well be honest about what Shawn had needed all of his information for.

When he told her the whole thing, Angie just sighed at him and said, "Oh, so they finally told you, did they? _That's_ the real reason why you were so upset; it's not that the town was so small."

Rey nearly fainted again.

Just when he thought he'd been shocked enough already, he was struck with the realization that women know everything _all the time_. Angie knew everything about her husband, even things that he hadn't known about himself (as well as some things he probably still has yet to discover). So he just let that go out of sheer terror of the omnipotent power that is women communicating with other women and finding out everything that has ever occurred since the dawn of time.

So when Rey came back to Smackdown next Friday he was still unsure of what to say. He walked into the locker room and everyone was silent with tension.

"Hey, Triple H. Did you get your tan on over break?"

Triple H shook his head. "Uh, no, why?"

Rey shrugged. "I don't know. Your skin looks kinda…glowy today. It's nice," he said and smiled sweetly.

"Thanks, man," Triple H murmured and turned tomato red.

The exfoliating gel had worked!!!

He went to open his locker and saw something. He smiled subtly and traced his gloved fingertip around the new star sticker adorning his locker's surface. It was pink with shiny silver borders.

C.M. Punk peeked at Rey and smiled.

Rey thought for a moment.

_We all like you, Rey, and for some of us it's like an infatuation. And for some of us it's like an addiction. But we all care about you, and if you feel uncomfortable, we'll stop drooling over you._

Rey believed that Punk would cease his infatuation if Rey asked him to. He was Straight Edge, so he definitely had the self-discipline to stop. But most of the others lacked that control. In fact, Rey's constant guidance was what provided a lot of the guys with any control at all. Rey gave them a sense of stability in their lives. Maybe their obsession with him was a good thing. Maybe he was a positive influence on them.

Well, he hadn't been a positive influence on Dave, but that seemed to be an exception to the rule.

_But we're not all like Dave._ Punk had said.

_Some of us just want to be friends with you, Rey, that's it._

Rey turned to look around the locker room and they all quickly and unconvincingly returned to their own business.

He thought for a moment. He looked back at the star sticker and considered what his life would be like if the guys stopped trying to cheer him up when he needed it.

What if he looked different? What if he stopped being nice?

The whole time, he'd thought of all this attention, all of his cute looks as a burden.

But then he knew. He knew that if he weren't the way he was, if he didn't look and act the way he did, nobody else would be able to pull off what he could. No one could take his place as a father figure and caregiver to all of the other wrestlers. Nobody could pull off laughing and crying and joking with the others as easily as Rey could.

And Rey knew all of a sudden that he was lucky. He could go up to any man, woman or child he ever wanted to and offer a hug whenever he felt like it. Any of the other guys would catch hell about that. He could wear pink and pastels and footie pajamas and eat candy and buy teddy bears and hold puppies and kitties. He could do whatever he wanted to, because he could pull it off. (He might even be able to wear a skort or a skirt, but he didn't want to risk trying it out.)

And so Rey Mysterio recognized that his looks, his height, were not a burden.

They liberated him.

He turned to everyone. They all watched him hopefully.

"I've decided what to do about how you guys feel about me."

They all listened intently, silently.

He continued. "I don't mind all of you paying attention to me. I can't return any romantic feelings, so I am sorry for that, but I do love all of you as my friends."

"So you don't mind gifts and things?" Jeff asked.

Rey shook his head. "Just don't tell me if you're daydreaming about me. That means you, Shawn."

HBK giggled maniacally.

"No flirting and no romantic touching, okay?" Rey clarified.

They all nodded.

"And no kidnapping!" Batista added.

"Aw, damn it," Cena said sarcastically.

Rey rolled his eyes. "Ah, Dios mio, this is going to take some getting used to."

But he was smiling.


End file.
